


Shared Retreat

by Graytrickster



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Crushes, Eventual Happy Ending, First Love, Fix It Fic, Fluff, Heart Break, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Nonbinary My Unit | Byleth, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Spoilers for Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), a lot of fluff then so much angst, dimiclaude, dmcl, so much fluff at first, star crossed lovers, will update tags as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:02:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 46,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23973475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Graytrickster/pseuds/Graytrickster
Summary: Youth, with its endless promises and intoxicating hope, too closely interwoven with the core of Claude's ambitions and dreams. It was so easy to forget himself. It nestled through the cracks of a broken heart.Don't get attached, but he does. Don't tell the truth, and he doesn't. Your heart will break, and it does.To dedicate your life to the world means you revoke your right to live for someone else, and your heart can never fully be theirs, but to believe that heart an easy thing to control is as arrogant as believing the sun will answer to your call.Is being naive something deserving of this punishment? Struck until the roots of hope bled and decayed. Dimitri was a human. That was beaten out of him by the cycle of tyrants that used Fodlan as the battle ground of ideologies that count their wins in corpses.Dimitri and Claude found a joy that defined what it meant to be human, and what it means to care for humanity when war would see it torn to shreds.Joint route, fix it fic au. Switching POVsPLEASE note tag, rating and content warning changes as the story progresses.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 39
Kudos: 128





	1. Chance encounter

**Author's Note:**

> A collection of Dimitri and Claude's feelings for one another that eventually run into a linear plot. It's my own little fix-it fic where I'm allowing myself to be self indulgent and write the things I wish to see or fill out parts I found lacking or disappointing, such as the kingdoms political structure or Claude's personal struggles as someone who is forced to remain levelheaded when thrown between so many prideful people and powerful conflicts. 
> 
> Once again, DISCLAIMER, PLEASE NOTE TAG, RATING, AND CONTENT WARNING CHANGES, I have some graphic stuff planned and don't want to catch anyone off guard since it was originally a lower rating. I'll post trigger warnings in the notes before chapters when/if they apply. This is a story about war after all, and war isn't pretty.
> 
> A final thing to be noted, I am dyslexic so typos inevitably pop up, I'll try my best to go back and correct anything that escaped notice during the editing process.

Sleep was hard to find, but rest in sleep was something that escaped Dimitri entirely. Rest and sleep were not synonymous. Neither were quiet and peace. He laid in his stiff dorm bed staring at the ceiling until his own heartbeat made him panic, the thumping in his ears like steps to his bed, a weight on his chest that paralyzed him, the corners of a quiet room filling with whispers until his own stillness suffocated him, until the sweat that drenched his pillow drowned him and the terrors bled themselves into the waking world, infuriated that Dimitri dare thought them escapable in the first place. They could not be silenced even if Dimitri were to lance his eardrums and cease the insatiable beating of his own panicked heart.

He dare not try. If he became deaf to the living, then how would he know when the future calls, waiting for him to grasp his promises, his dreams. The debts he owed could not be paid with blood that poured from his ears.

So, when his frantic thoughts broke the paralysis of escapeless regrets, Dimitri got up as the world remained asleep, avoiding his gaze in the mirror as he dressed, less he met what tournaments may be grazing his nape, just past the limits of his peripheral. He got dressed in his academy uniform, neatly sliding into his role as a house leader even at the hours the goddess slept. If someone asked, he could feign as if he’d never gone to sleep at all. A Prince dedicated to his studies, so devoted that sleep itself had become a luxury, preparing for his role as King. It wasn’t a lie, for Dimitri was never particularly good at lying, yet it wasn’t the whole truth. But truth wore itself as trivial details of Dimitri’s lacking sleep, which was never important enough to share.

A dutiful Prince staying late at the library. That’s what he was when he crossed the Monastery grounds into the library. Somewhere that was off limits to most of the Academy once curfew was called due to its proximity to the Archbishops quarters. Most of the academy did not include staff, church officials, professors, or house leaders. The earlier of which tended to linger once frantic students had been cast out, leaving piles of books to be sorted and solitude to be savored. It was just the right amount of presence to ease Dimitri from the weight of absence, yet a distance kept for the mutual search of reprieve from the day.

Awake and aware without demand, every step a pace further from his den of trepidation, every minute a moment for his cold sweat to dry from his brow, closer to when the sun would inch out the shadows from his room and whatever hid within.

What the troubled Prince had not expected to find in the wakeless hours of the library was Claude. The low candle lights make Claude a haze of gold in Dimitri’s cold night, the yellows of his clothes and warmth of his skin as hopeful as the sunrise, the book half his face was sunken into the horizon. Claude had not noticed the other house leader yet, so the expression he wore was one of honesty, almost stone faced as he poured into the knowledge clasped between smart hands that turned wielding a bow into art itself. The leader of the Golden Deer surrounded himself in stacks of books, some written out in languages Dimitri wasn’t fluent enough in to have carried the information from the pages to his mind. Claude would be there for purely academic reasons, unlike Dimitri who felt it was the only retreat from ghosts who knew him to be a coward. Diligent, clever, poised in a way Dimitri had not seen other nobles proficiently carry before- uniquely charming even now, in a nameless hour on a cold night, without a soul in the world to judge him.

A cup sat to Claude’s left, something Dimitri had suspected was tea until his body had carried him forward, catching the strong scent of coffee on his nose, piercing through the fog he’d walked in to bring himself before Claude. To call his approach involuntary would not be the truth, to call it an action his typical restraint had failed to catch was more accurate. Awake yet not fully aware. Not until the expecting gaze of clever green eyes searched Dimitri’s expression, making Dimitri suddenly aware of just how bizarre he must have been acting to the world outside of his head.

A strong pause lingered in the air like coffee. Claude had said something, he was sure of it. The movement of his lips were inescapable.

“...Dimitri?” Claude repeated, shattering the ice of Dimitri’s lake. Had Dimitri been more himself he would have been delighted to hear his name without any formalities attached to it, but he was thinking too quickly to savor such a moment. He had to say something, this was getting too weird.

“Apologies, Claude.” He started, fitting back into his forgotten manners. What had come over him? The sleeplessness was getting to him. “I hadn’t expected to see you here at this hour. Let alone with a workload so daunting.” He looked away to find relief from his own blundering. It had just occurred to him that Claude had called him by his name and not his title, and that stirred something in his chest too electric to be panicked. “I hadn’t expected you to be the type to lapse on your studies.” Dimitri said, more to fill the silence than actually meaning it, eyes fixed on the spines of books that were beyond his tired mind.

“Who, me? Slacking? You got it all wrong, Your Highness, this is more, lets say, extracurricular. This library has all sorts of stuff that can’t be found anywhere else in Fodlan or beyond. Every step in here’s another rabbit hole to fall down in.” He spoke from a smile that was as easy to wear as it were for Dimitri to lock his gaze away from his mirror. There was no rue in Claude’s voice yet the tips of Dimitri’s ears burned upon realizing his blunder.

“Goodness, you’re right. Please forgive me for my uncharitable assumption of your academic efforts. Your dutiful nature has always been something uwise to underestimate.” Dimitri said stiffly as his eyes returned to Claude, who was far more amused at the pink of Dimitri’s ears than anything else, his smile a touch more genuine.

“Apology accepted, though if you underestimated me, that only makes it easier for me to get a one up on you. Who am I to complain about a free advantage?” Claude draped his arm across the chair next to him, the one Dimitri had been standing with his too straight posture and clenched jaw. The mirth was infectious.

“As schematic as ever, I see. Thank you for reminding me, even at the cost of this so called ‘free advantage.’” Dimitri said. Talking to Claude was easy. Claude went out of his way to make it easy, which was something Dimitri attempted to emulate, that air of approachability, yet always failed to successfully carry in his squared shoulders and formal diction. Claude seemed pleased with Dimitri’s response. Enough to pull the chair next to him out and motion to it.

“Care to join me in this late night library retreat? It’d be weird if we just saw each other and pretended we didn’t.” Claude suggested, even though that was exactly what Dimitri was planning to do if he had spotted any familiar faces. Claude would be an exception.

“If you’d still have me in your company after such a blunder, I’d be honored to oblige.” Dimitri sank down next to Claude with ease. It hadn’t been what he’d been planning, but it wasn’t like he’d made his way to the library with any other expectation than simple escape from his night terrors. To be met with a glimpse into Claude’s mind, even the smallest view, was something Dimitri could allow himself.

Even though Dimitri was a good size larger than Claude, the books that stacked in front of him were dangerously close to eclipsing his view of the entire library. If he had slouched while sitting down it would have hit his nose. His perplexed expression yet silent insistence on remaining still in any assumptions was easily picked up by Claude.

“Looks like you got something to say.” Claude pointed out. He had picked up on that undercut of exhaustion on Dimitri’s face when he had first approached, yet knew better than most that if someone wasn’t offering up information, then there wasn’t much use in prying. At least when it came to Dimitri.

“You’ve built a fortress within the library.” Dimitri replied, the dry sarcasm so unexpected that Claude almost barked a laugh and broke the perfect veil of hushed tones they’d been speaking in. Claude twirled the pen between his fingers much like one of his arrows, watching Dimitri’s eyes scan over the papers in front of him, eyes snagging on something in Almyran that Dimitri could not read.

“I’ve got a lot to learn if I’m to lead the Alliance.” Claude explained. “A lotta stuff I outta know are things our dear old teachers here don't know. How am I to be a leader if I can’t even talk to our neighboring country in their own tongue.” He explained, Dimitri’s eyes sparkled with a respectable admiration, a look that lightened some anxiety from Claude’s chest.

“You’re right, it is odd. I’ve never stopped to think about it before, but perhaps that is another part of the problem.” Dimitri agreed, thumb carefully grazing over the spine of a book he hadn’t seen in the library before. “My narrow focus tends to skew toward the Kingdom for obvious reasons, but concerns of the Alliance should be shared concerns of my own if we’re to be of understanding in our reigns.” Dimitri mused, mind set to politics like it typically was.

This would be a great time to hear more of Dimitri’s plans for the future, to suggest routes that would benefit Claude’s own, to solidify the future King as his ally in a bond of cultural understanding-

And yet something ate at Claude, a curiosity that sat outside the political realm that they so often walked across in conversation. Dimitri was an enigma. Straightforward and easy to figure out weren’t mutually applicable with Dimitri, not all the time. Sure he was straight to the point, even to a fault at times, but like recognized like, and Claude knew Dimitri was distant. An arm's length between his troubles and the eyes of others. One of the few similarities between the upbringing in Faerghus and Claude’s own? Grit your teeth and bare it, and something tells Claude that Dimitri must have a toothache from it. Maybe it was his posture, rigid as if in battle and not straight up as a refined Prince should be. Then his eyes, tired, weighed with dark circles that stood starkly against pale skin, and a toss of Dimitri’s hair that Claude would find charming had he not looked so shaken.

“So why are you here so late?” Claude asked, mentally checking himself out for a break as he leaned back in the chair, eyeing Dimitri curiously. “Can’t help but notice you didn’t bring any of your own bricks to add to my fortress. You didn’t come all this way just to check on me, did you?” Claude caught Dimitri off guard tonight, a rarity worthy of diamonds, and those cheeky comments seemed to find their way under Dimitri’s skin with ease.

“How would I do that, I didn’t even know you were here.” Dimitri said, hand falling from the side of the book to the table, fingers carefully clenching and unclenching.“The nights are growing longer and yet I can’t find rest.” Dimitri admitted, offering up knowledge of his troubles as if it were a chunk of his own flesh, with much hesitation and a distantly pained expression. “The library is quiet, and my mind may pace here. If you don’t mind my prying, Claude, you haven’t even tried to sleep yet, have you? It looks as if you’ve been settled here for quite some time.” Dimitri was sure the sun was going to rise soon, though dawn lasted longer these days. “I know tomorrow is our free day but don’t you need sleep if you can get it?”

“Seteth’s been on my case about what kind of books I’ve been checking out. Tried to sneak one past him but got caught, narrowly talked my way out of him taking it out of the library completely, but now I can only read it in here.” Claude explained, idly flipping the page of the book he’d scanned over more than once now. “Lucky me, I get to play him at his own game. Being a house leader, I can be here all night if I want and he can’t say a thing since it’s his own stuffy rules. Still, the guy’s not amused with my needling, I got a hunch that it’ll be spirited away the second I step out of here.” He raised the coffee to his lips, brewed extra strong, a little something he got from Hubert’s stash when Linhardt had lost a bet to Claude and that was his requested prize, since asking Hubert himself was out of the question, he’d probably poison it, and the guy refused to share who he imported it from. Linhardt, for better or worse, couldn’t spare a scrap of fear for Hubert if he tried, and Claude would savor his winnings.  
“But as long as I’m here, doing my duties as a good little house leader, he can’t just outright take it away from me. Sleep? Who needs sleep.” Claude gave Dimitri a nod before taking a comically exaggerated sip. He was actually feeling the hours start to creep up on him. The books he could sneak away from Seteth’s gaze and letters he poured over had knocked his sense of time clear out, demanding his attention. It demanded his attention even now, as he steered closer to exhaustion. He had once caught himself laying his head down, nearly dozing off on the books before snapping awake and devising an inelegant yet effective plan to sneak off and make more coffee. He set his cape on the chair behind a book fort to make it seem as if he were seated just behind it for anyone (Seteth) that might come looking. Now the words were starting to blur in his second or third pass through of it, catching himself reading over a passage multiple times to absorb it before he completely passed out at morning call. Dimitri’s sudden presence had done well to wake him up, prompting him to chase down some curiosities held with the handsome Prince of Faerghus. A two for one kinda night, wasn’t he in luck.

Dimitri’s laugh, if it could be called that, came out as an amused puff of air. “Do you enjoy walking these fine lines?” Dimitri asked.

Claude shrugged a nonanswer. “If it gets me to where I need to go, I’m pretty good at it.”

Whatever had shackled Dimitri’s mind when Claude had first seen him walk in, dazed and unfocused, was lifting. The rigid formalities had not yet sunk itself into Dimitri, and Claude couldn’t help but wonder, how much could he get away with?  
“Coffee?” Claude held the cup up to him, a turn of his wrist bringing the rim where Claude’s lips had been to face Dimitri. Not that Dimitri would know, but this was a bolder romantic gesture where Claude was from, to share a cup. Something about symbolism, probably, and while it could be perceived that way in Fodlan, it was less prevalent here, with more plausible deniability. To touch where one's lips had been was something he heard a few giggles about before, and for the socialite Dimitri was born to be, the Prince would have to know about it. Claude had expected, maybe, to see more of that blush that popped up when Dimitri had fumbled his manners, maybe something cheesy about an indirect kiss, maybe he’d politely decline saying it was too rude, too  
-

Dimitri’s half lidded eyes raised to meet Claude’s with the faintest of smiles. “Thank you.” He said, lifting a hand to gently lay under the delicate cup, resulted in the covering of Claude’s hand by Dimitri’s larger one, the Prince unable to grab it from Claude at the risk of toppling over a pillar of books and making do from their position next to one another. Claude became very aware of how close they actually were, the seat that he’d offered Dimitri having been pulled closer to hold his things before Claude had used it for book fort construction. Dimitri’s eyes slid shut as he leaned forward, lips pressed over where Claude’s had been, tongue at a dreg of coffee that had been hanging there. He felt the firm tilt of his hand upward, the soft breath on his hand before Dimitri drank a sip, the flutter of blond lashes as he took in the strength of the coffee. Had Dimitri known the custom, he would have held Claude’s elbow as well, Claude’s hand would be flat against the cup instead of lifting it by the handle and his fingers curled under, and if Dimitri had known the romantic custom, he’d understand why Claude had fallen godsmaked silent from his little tongue in cheek offer that completely backfired.

Maybe Claude really did need to go to bed, he was so tired he was starting to play himself. Outside of this moment, Claude tried to keep himself from getting distracted by Dimitri, because he had a working pair of eyes and the Prince was candy to them, but now Claude was fairly sure he’d forgotten how to read. He’d done well to keep his focus before, around Dimitri, with his typical sunny yet distant disposition, and Dimitri’s kind yet formal block on the world. They’d skirt around each other, tugged into opposing directions because of their fates, their duties, and promises yet achieved.

Claude reached for the stars, and while he knew it was a never ending chase, in doing so, he saw the beautiful things that came out only at night. Like this moment with Dimitri. A moment of longing hidden in the night. Claude had felt that way his entire life, but never had it been concentrated to a single person before. Dimitri smiled something shy as he realized the smallest bit of intimacy that had slipped between his self restrained allowance of such things.

Suddenly he wasn’t Claude, the future Duke and leader of the Alliance, a run away to a foreign land with nothing but hope and unyielding determination powering his lonely heart into flight. Dimitri wasn’t the future King of a pain gripped Kingdom, desperate to not be torn apart by the same horrors that anchored themselves in Dimitri, the pain so close that it became indistinguishable from the rest of him.

They were simply students at an academy shyly sharing a cup of coffee, out far past curfew with no eyes to pry and demand a role to be filled. That in itself was too scandalous, too treacherous to all the responsible they’d massed and swore to carry, to be allowed. A flower threatening to seed itself in the unseen cracks of their foundations, the sprouting of which could spell detriment, and to water it would rot away the very wood they’d walked upon their entire lives.

Claude’s hands were narrow and warm, Dimitri’s strong and sure, and the moment they’d parted, each knew another person's hold would never be as warm. Claude had to kick his brain back into gear so the cup wouldn’t be stupidly hovering in the air between them for far too long. Dimitri’s fingers curled to his lips, clearing his throat in a silence that was so sudden and so dense it felt like a blow of magic.

“...It’s good.” Dimitri spoke first, eyes back to pages he couldn’t read.

“Y-yeah.” Claude started, gathering himself, face hot and masks wavering. “It better be good, I went through a lot of trouble to get it.”

“I cannot even begin to comprehend what that means. With you, it could be anything.” Dimitri said with fondness.

“Your Highness, are you teasing me?” Claude asked, chasing that fondness.

“Ah. I’m sorry, I seem to have been caught on a night I’m particularly disheveled. I’ve been so rude in your company and you’ve been nothing but generous with yours.” Dimitri apologized again, eyes snapping back up to meet his own look a kid caught with their hand in a cookie jar. Claude wouldn’t survive the night, this was unbearably endearing.

“Don’t get me wrong, Your Princeliness, I’m having fun. Don’t need to be so stiff.” Claude said, leaning with his hands folded below his chin to resist putting them anywhere else. “But if you’re so intent on making amends…” Dimitri looked at him, trying to pick apart what that impish lithe of his voice could be, despite never being able to do so before. Props for trying. “You say you come here a lot, yeah?” Claude asked.

“I… do. Only when I can’t sleep, so it’s rather sporadic visits.” It was every other day at this point.

“My visits are similarly erratic but, if you don’t mind putting another block on your schedule, maybe we could come here together. Better to travel together than alone, you know.” He propositioned, watching the idea turn over in Dimitri’s tired eyes.

“You make a very good point, I’d never stopped to consider the dangers of this before.” Dimitri said, drumming his fingers on the table. Of course Dimitri had never thought about it before. Strong, tall, with a commanding presence that could stop shadows in their track, easily the strongest in the Monastery, perhaps the entirety of Fodlan with the magic that bled into his easy strength. He doubted there was a single thing alive Dimitri was scared of.

Claude was not the same. He could out run most with ease, but a lifetime of a target on his back didn’t make him anything but cautious. If he could get Dimitri to come with him around at night, well, that safety by proxy was an added bonus to his already stacking curiosities of the Prince.

Dimitri should say no to spare Claude any look at the madness that kept Dimitri restless. He should say no to not encourage Claude to miss out on sleep. He should say no to keep from any rumors surfacing of what the two out so late at night, beside one another, could raise. To think he could tarnish Claude’s rest and reputation was another drop of guilt in the ocean that drowned him.

“I’d like that.” Dimitri agreed, and the sea rose. “Only if it doesn’t interfere with your abilities as not only a student, but a leader here at the Academy. Fatigue is detriment on the battlefield-“

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Trust me, this isn’t my first go around. I got my schedule knitted together like a quilt,” maybe he was a little sleepy if that analogy was telling. “Free day tomorrow, remember? I’m all set for the end of the month mission, and Hilda can’t bug me into doing her chores if I tell her Seteth’s looking for me.” He explained, and that looked to put Dimitri more at ease, watching Dimitri watch him, the corner of his lip raising in amusement. Dimitri looked younger that way. He looked his own age. He looked tired.

“Then I shall follow your example and sort out time to make up for sleep as well, if these insomniacs meetings are to continue.” Dimitri said, further solidifying their deal. Claude would reach out a hand to shake on it, the cherry on top of his light hearted antics, but was terrified what thoughts would flood him if Dimitri’s hand were to fit over his own again.

They walked back together soon after. As it turned out, the book Claude had been spending up all night on was technically a property of the Kingdom, and if Dimitri were the last to take it from the library, Seteth would be unable to monitor who was reading it until it’s return. Dimitri was almost giddy at the idea of getting one up on the strict principal and his unfairly crafted rules that had robbed Claude of sleep. Serves him right.


	2. Vulnerability

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When was your first love? How did it happen?

Dimitri couldn’t sleep the next night, so he went to the library. When he hadn’t seen Claude there, he scolded himself for being foolish in assuming their unscheduled meetings would happen one night after another, and so he hadn’t showed up when Claude did the night after that, having taken a day to play it cool. 

The weeks unfolded in that pattern. One missing the other on the nights they did go out, visits spaced out in their own sporadic way, and never seeing the other there. 

The fact they hadn’t put it to a schedule is what kept it casual, what kept it from being anything but a convenient presence and welcomed company. They hadn’t the chance to talk with one another for three weeks before Claude caught Dimitri’s wrist as they passed each other in the hallway. An odd tension settled between in the passing weeks, all accumulating to them in the empty dormitory hall as they made their way to their respective rooms some time in the early afternoon. He didn’t think it would get so awkward and they rarely had a moment alone with one another given their respective duties. Claude would take this chance to get an answer.

Maybe Dimitri just wasn’t interested. A small, invasive and persistent voice kept ticking in Claude’s mind as he went over the possibilities of why he hadn’t managed to meet up with Dimitri again. While poor communication was the likeliest candidate, he couldn’t rule out the worst case scenario. That the seemingly earnest prince was simply entertaining Claude’s ideas for a night and never intended to carry through with his absurd proposition. Claude was no stranger to broken promises and they hadn’t done more than make an aloof agreement. Why hold value to the words of a runt? 

Now that was a part that made no sense to speculate on, Claude had come to Fodlan with no ties to his past, not even his real name, just a crest to identify him and validate his claim to the title his mother had abandoned. That was all Dimitri could know. 

Or perhaps there was just something universally unlovable about him. Just as prevalent as his crest, just as permanent, just as hereditary. An unasked for crest to an unwanted child that weighed him like the only crown his birth had guaranteed. Something in his posture. In the way he spoke, the way he looked, you could clock a warrior by their walk alone, you could spot a prince by his rigid shoulders, was there something conditioned in Claude that others could identify in him only when he was in motion, stuck in his own head and unaware of what others saw?

Those thoughts rushed into a single point of contact when Claude grabbed Dimitri. Dimitri turned around, blinking back at Claude, more than capable of pulling himself from Claude’s grip but instead stopped before him, startled and waiting. There was no malice, but…

“You haven’t been blowing me off, have you, Your Highness?” Could Claude betray his own hurt by giving it too much presence in his voice. 

That’s when Claude noticed how glassy Dimitri’s eyes were, almost like a doll. Not there yet still following, staring right through Claude, resigned to whatever had been plaguing the front of his thoughts. It was only for a moment, there and gone in the blink of an eye, but it pinned Claude to the spot. Was Dimitri okay?

Claude waited. He worried.

“...If I’ve left you waiting, it hasn’t been done intentionally.” The light returned to his eyes. Dimitri turned to fully face Claude, no longer half out of Claude’s presence like their wordless walk down the hall had been until now. Had he even noticed Claude was next to him? “I would go in search of you on the odd night, but it seems we missed each other if you were doing the same and expecting me.” 

Dimitri looked down to where the grip on his wrist had loosened and slid his hand up to meet Claude’s. He turned it over, knuckles upward, Claude’s hand resting in his own rather than gripping. He brought it up, holding Claude to the attention he deserved. 

“Though the words I use now would have been better served asking you directly if I should have met you, instead of waiting for another wordless encounter. I’m sorry, Claude.”

The mournful way Dimitri spoke, as if reciting his own eulogy. Dimitri looked pale. The stress of which Claude wouldn’t flatter himself into thinking he had caused with his confrontation in the hallway. No, this was something familiar to how Dimitri had looked when they first crossed paths in the library that night, and maybe it was just the fact he could see Dimitri in better lighting now, but he looked even worse. There was a distance in Dimitri’s gaze, one Claude wondered if either of them could ever truly cross. 

But there’s no knowing until you try.

“Hey, no need to get somber about it.” Claude said, not letting his hand go from Dimitri’s though he crossed the line into lingering. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like a big deal.” It had been chewing at Claude’s thoughts more than it should have, more than he allowed it to, but when had those worries ever listened to him? 

“Do you have any late studying planned for tonight?” Dimitri asked, head cocked to the side as he looked back, thumb grazing over Claude’s knuckles in a way that had to just be manners, right? That was just something people in Dimitri’s country would do when apologizing or something. Had to be. The people of Fodlan couldn’t even brush shoulders without getting faint hearted over its intimacy, and Dimitri didn’t strike him as the experienced type. He couldn’t even hug Hilda without someone threatening to tattle to Holst, and she was his closest friend. But Dimitri was maybe holding his hand? Premaritally? In Fodlan? 

“Tonight?” Claude parroted back, a little off kilter by the continued contact with Dimitri. 

“Yes. Tonight. I’d hate to keep you waiting any longer.” Dimitri said, eyes as blue as the sky Claude hung his dreams upon.

“...Are you free right now?” Claude asked, hopeful in the daylight. 

Dimitri stopped to consider. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to offer you the companionship you deserve in the state I’m currently in.” Dimitri admitted, confirming Claude’s suspicion that something was off. Dimitri lowered his hand until it disappeared from Claude’s fingers like a cloud of smoke or a flying arrow. 

“You still haven’t been sleeping, have you?” Claude asked. Dimitri looked away. 

“Has my fatigue become so apparent?” Dimitri asked, folding his arms. “It’s not for a lack of trying, and while I shouldn’t be ungrateful to sleep in a bed while so many in my kingdom can only find rest where exhaustion lets them, it’s simply…” he trailed off. “Too quiet.” He said in a way that told Claude the extent of his troubles couldn’t be summed up simply or politely. 

“Is that where you’re going now? To take a nap?” Claude let his hand fall, slipping it into his pocket as to not seem jittery or too idle. 

“Those of my class insisted. Dedue even surfaced the idea of carrying me here had I resisted rest any further, and he isn’t one to make jokes of that matter.” 

“Are you actually gonna get any sleep, or are you going to keep pacing around until it looks like you were gone long enough?” Claude had guessed it was what Dimitri was doing, but Dimitri looking so red handed confirmed it for him. Claude reached for Dimitri’s hand again. “Come with me.”

* * *

Dimitri didn’t know what to expect from Claude’s dorm. As he’d known it, those of the kingdom were light travelers, as was necessary for military campaigns and that was what the majority of travel was meant for. The journey to Garreg Mach and its year long stay was no exception. A chest of clothes. Weapons. Documents meant to be studied and memorized in his own time, without the aid of others for the sake of the throne he was to inherit in a matter of mere months. Things he could pack up and be gone with at moments notice once he was done here. 

Claude's room was not the same. Inviting and tailored to the life Claude had made for himself here, in his stay at Garreg Mach, life breathed into the dull dorm rooms by Claude’s continued presence in it. Dimitri had never visited Derdriu, not officially, but if it were as lovely as Claude, he was certain the beauty would leave him speechless. 

The first thing he noticed was the smell of incense, delicate and warm, the repeated burning of oil that didn’t only exist to be served for weapon maintenance. He noticed iron clamps, like the kind for forging and metal work, scattered at the far end of Claude’s room, a box stacked high with arrow tips placed off on the ledge. Dimitri thought his weapons upkeep was a chore, at least lances didn’t run out the way arrows did.

Stacks of books dotted the room, some splayed out and open, spread out further than the confines of a desk, placed in various haphazard piles around the room in a manner that surely made sense in Claude’s mind. 

The book Dimitri had helped Claude attain sat closed on the desk, near tucked away letters and a carefully placed quill. Dimitri sparsely used his desk. He didn’t have anyone to write to. Several pieces of paper stuck out through the book, a journal spotted with ink along its spine placed next to it. Dimitri smiled, glad to know he could aid in Claude’s assiduous research. 

“This way, Your Highness.” Claude said, taking Dimitri’s mind away from the room. Claude led him to the bed.

Claude’s bed was bigger than any of the others in the dorms, draped in blankets finer than the standard quilts they were all given. Claude cleared off the sprawling books and journals he had on the bed, and a new stack of books joined the small hoard behind his bed, perched above the rest on the bedside table.

Dimitri’s hazy mind finally caught up with the rest of him, clicking in place to the situation he was in. Claude expected him on his bed.

 _"Claude!"_ Dimitri blurted out with no lack of scandal. He reeled back a few steps, hip hitting the desk. “What is the meaning of this!” 

“Hm?” Claude looked back at him, pause from fluffing a pillow. Dimitri gaped at him, wide eyed and face red, blush only growing stronger by the second. His usual careful posture shattered as he braced back against Claude’s desk as if jumping back from a fire or stepped a little too close to a lightning spell. He’d never see Dimitri like this. He didn’t think Dimitri could look like this, and while he would have loved to bask in how he’d managed to pull a thread to reveal a reaction that would be so easy to tease-

He had done it completely on accident, like a fool. The implications weren’t lost on Claude, they just caught up late, held up by Claude fixing his bed for his impromptu guest.

“...oh. Oh! No, no no,” the pillow dropped from Claude’s hands as he frantically waved them, feeling like an utter halfwit for walking head first into another easy misunderstanding. “This is _not_ what you think it is, I mean, come on, three dates at least, your royalness,” 

“Then what _is_ this? If you’re trying to provoke me then I’m incredibly displeased with your method of choice, at least _tell_ me if you intend to-“

“Sleep.” Claude said, picking the pillow back up and throwing it at Dimitri’s chest, the flustered prince catching it with a fumble. “Here.” He pointed at his plush bed. “Sleep here. The beds in these dormitories are awful and something tells me you’re not one to actually try and make yourself comfortable.” Dimitri just kept staring at him.

Claude cleared his throat, gathering himself so at least one of them wasn’t so openly bewildered. Oh boy, how would he come back from this.

“...when I first came here- to Garreg Mach, I couldn’t sleep. At all.” Dimitri regains his composure as Claude approaches, hands open to take the pillow back. “I was completely out of my depth. I wasn’t raised in all this. Wasn’t raised crest forward. When I found out my mom was born an heir to the leading dukedom in the Leicester Alliance, I thought she was just pulling some kinda hoax, waiting to see how long she’d have to keep bluffing until I fell for it. Took her showing me I had a crest to believe it. Now that was last year. To get from there to here? It was a lot of sleepless nights.” He dropped the pillow back to where it belonged, its state of fluff now a frivolous after thought.

“So, I talked to dear old Duke Riegan and got this shipped up. It’s better than the stiff dorm beds and it won’t be too quiet ‘cause I tend to talk under my breath when reading over my notes- which I was planning to do at the library but here is good, too.”

Dimitri covered his red face with his hands, alarm quickly replaced by shame. “Claude, I… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have implied, or even assumed-” 

“Dimitri,” Claude cut off with a raise of his hand, “you’re the most chaste person I could ever think of, but if I were on your end of this, getting pulled up to your bed? Well, let’s just say I wouldn’t be against the idea, but it’d definitely be the second most shocking news I’ve ever heard in my life.” He delivered it with a wink, face as warm as Dimitri’s own but trying to play it off. Claude stepped back, giving Dimitri a clear path to the bed. Dimitri huffed something that sounded like amusement, gathering his composure stepped forward and let himself sit on the edge of the bed. Better than standing around like a gaping dolt.

Claude followed, sitting down next to him. The bed was nice, he had to admit. Less grandiose than what Dimitri had at the palace but, that somehow made him feel better. Something being offered to him by a friend who felt concerned, not a reminder he had much to do to simply be rightful of the place he slept and the title he inherited.

“Thank you.” Dimitri finally said, slowly willing the awkwardness to leave. At least, he tried, but if he didn’t make it weird (again) maybe things wouldn’t be weird. He set his elbows on his knees, looking down at the carpet in Claude’s dorm. Another nice touch. Yellow to correspond with his house and soft, Dimitri could tell that even under his boots. “You continue to extend your generosity and your company toward me despite my blunders, and though I fear I’ll sound ungrateful, I must admit that a change of scenery isn’t enough to guarantee rest. I’d hate to squander your offer with my restlessness.”

“Never know until you try.” Claude said. Dimitri looked back up, Claude now scratching the back of his neck. It was good to know that Claude had at least been similarly affected by their mishap. “If you want, that is. Needless to say the doors right there, and after being so… let’s say, tone deaf, I obviously couldn't blame you for walking out.” 

Dimitri’s eyes flickered from Claude to the door, then to Claude once more. Claude braced his pride.

“I accept your invitation.” Dimitri said, granting Claude a sigh of relief knowing things hadn’t been messed up. Dimitri went to take off his bulkiest items. 

Dimitri slid his gauntlets off before he started working on the armor layered over his boots. “It would be inappropriate to wear shoes in such a nice bed. Let alone armor.” The smile Dimitri was met with was brilliant enough to make his stupid mishandling of Claude’s offer worth it, becuase this time it reached Claude’s eyes. After parting with the chest plate, he laid back, amazed to be in a bed where his feet didn’t hang off the edge. He forgot such a comfort existed. Claude, pleased by the deep breath Dimitri took, picked his book back up and was ready to set back to the desk to give Dimitri room to sleep. 

But there was one more thing bothering Dimitri, something about what Claude had said when in the midst of their debacle.

“Claude.” Dimitri spoke up, the softness of his voice even surprising to Dimitri. The prince propped himself up on his elbow. “Perhaps it’s none of my business, and you’re entitled to your past and it’s secrets, so only answer if you feel comfortable, but I have to ask… what you said, about not being raised knowing about your crest, is that true?” Claude blinked back at him, settling back on the bed with the book on his lap, fingers drumming over it’s hard back as he looked off to think about what Dimitri had asked him. 

“It’s true.” Claude said, thumbing the corner of the book absentmindedly. “Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t free of politics entirely- nobody is, but there are places out there where things like crests aren’t as big a deal. I know it must be hard to believe, everyday I hear so much here about the goddess and her magic bloodlines that it makes my head spin.” Claude settled back against the headboard, leaning back next to Dimitri as he glanced at the prince nervously. Dimitri nodded, encouraging Claude to continue. “My mom abandoned that life and didn’t expect me to have any interest in picking it up.” 

“And why did you?” Dimitri asked before he could stop himself from doing so. Certainly he had pried enough. Claude, the leader of the Golden Deer, so shrewd and secretive and clever, who poured every part of himself into his efforts and delicately covered it with a veil of flippant airs as to not draw the destructive attention of others. 

“I mean…” Claude’s hand went to fiddle with his braid now, rubbing the braid end between his thumb and index finger. “We all have things we wanna see for the world, right? I think everybody does, I just, you know, found out I have a chance to make that happen. Here. I’m not like you. I wasn’t born into it like you, with a whole roadmap to a throne before me and what have you, but it’s something.” Claude sighed through his nose, exasperated by the duty he had risen to meet and being the only person who he could rely on in making it happen. “So many people like me can only dream of the changes they can make to the world, to the way things exist around them that affect their entire lives, that they’re powerless to control. For a long time, I was one of those people. But I got lucky, I have that chance now.” He spoke carefully, unapologetically vague as he met Dimitri’s questions. It was the closest to the truth he could get with another person right now. “I’ll spare you the sob story, but it boils down to the fact that, maybe this way, if I work myself to the bone and talk my way around enough stuffy nobles, there’ll be a world where no one has to feel like I did- an outsider. Maybe no one else will ever have to fight their way to the top just to feel they got the right to exist. I want the world to be better than it is now, and enough other people want the same that I know it can happen. Just have to work for it.” He could feel Dimitri’s eyes on him as he hung on Claude’s words. Claude was pensive, having more to say but not knowing if he should. The secrets he kept were for a good reason, a handsome prince and his look of admiration couldn’t be allowed to disarm him. “Better than sitting on my hands and hoping for something to magically change while I get kicked around by my older brothers.” Claude said with an air of finality, dropping that nugget of information as bait for a subject change. 

“You have siblings?” Dimitri asked, so surprised to hear it that it was the detail, out of all that Claude said, he commented on first. He felt foolish. “My apologies for probing further, especially on something so trivial compared to what you work yourself so hard for, I had just come to understand you were the only grandchild of Duke Riegan.” He didn’t want Claude’s meaningful words to feel wasted upon him and yet being awake for 60 hours had damaged his inhibitions. 

“They’re half siblings. My dad’s a pretty popular guy.” Claude said with a laugh in his voice, amused and endeared by Dimitri’s habit of over correcting himself. “Since my mom’s the one I got the crest from and I’m her only kid, they don’t have any claim to the Riegan Dukedom. Besides, I don’t think they’d want it. They’re pretty cushy where they are, probably doubly so now that I’m not there. Only child of their dad's current wife? The youngest at that? Yeah. I don’t have a place there.” Claude barely had a place here. “Not right now, at least.” Claude sighed, looking up and expecting a sky full of stars, only to be met with the ceiling of his dorm room, and Dimitri staring at him with a look he’d never quite seen before.

“You’re right. That is incredibly different from my own experiences that lead me here.” 

What did Dimitri feel for Claude? At this very moment? More than anything? Perhaps admiration. Respect. Sympathy, even though Claude’s upbringing was as different from Dimitri’s as it could get, even if Dimitri wasn’t certain of the definition of sympathy and how to bestow it properly, he did want to make Claude feel better, the way he deserved to feel. “If I’m being candid, I believe that’s more admirable than to be born to a throne.” Dimitri admitted.

“Yeah, well a straight shot to one would make this whole thing a lot easier to accomplish, believe me. So what about you?” Claude asked, he lightly buffed his knuckles against Dimitri’s arm. “Come on, Your Princeliness, you’re sneakier than you give yourself credit for. Here I am spilling my guts to you, but I haven’t even gotten any of your secrets in return. Isn’t that a little unfair?” Claude insisted, crossing his legs. 

“Secrets, hm?” Dimitri hummed. “I don’t know if I have any worth sharing.”

“Right. You’re an open book kinda guy…” Claude said, a little disappointed. They both stared out in front of themselves, down the stretch of Claude’s comfortable bed that got a little snug with the two of them sitting side by side on it.

“...Edelgard is my sister.” Dimitri said into the dense silence, and Claude almost fell off the bed with how alarmed he was.

“What!? She’s your sister?” 

“Well, we were discussing siblings and secrets. She is my step-sister, technically. It’s something I don’t share for the political discourse our familial relationship could raise, as I’m sure you’re aware of what this kind of knowledge could do in the wrong hands. My mother died when I was too young to remember her, and there was conflict within the Adrestian Empire, before Edelgard was made the crowning princess, which caused her and her mother to flee to Faerghus for refuge. My father was taken by her mother and they married in secret. We were only in each other’s lives for a short time before Edelgard was taken back to the Empire by another turning tide of politics. It was devastating, but drove me for a time, making me want to excel as a prince in hopes I could have the power to reunite with my dearest friend.” Claude stopped to think about Edelgard, having to double back on his run-ins with the Adrestian Princess and how she was in her interactions with Dimitri. To say she was cold was putting it mildly.

“Edelgard, huh. You know, I can’t describe the way she is with you as friendly.” Claude admitted, internally cringing as he saw Dimitri’s crestfallen expression.

“Much has changed between then and now. I doubt she remembers me, and if she does, then it doesn’t matter. We’re both very different people from what we once were. Different things drive me now, and I’m certain the same can be said for her.” Dimitri shook his head softly. With his armor removed, with the cape put aside, free of metal and padding and weapons, he looked less like a statue and more like a man. Yet there was something inescapably regal to him, even as Dimitri curled up on his bed, knees up and folding into himself. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, Claude internally recalled the saying, and it must be pressing like the thumb of a god.

A darkness brewed just past it all, circling into itself like the beginnings of a storm that has yet to find its eye. Dimitri stood in the center of it all, yet for now he could still see Claude past the fog.

“Is your past still what drives you now?” Claude asked. Dimitri wasn’t proud, but answered truthfully.

“Not exactly my past, but the people of it. Those who gave their lives to secure my own or dedicated their lives to build up what I am to inherit now. I have to go forward for those who can’t and I don’t dare forget that. It’s my duty and it’s why I came here. If I'm the only one left alive then it falls on me to carry through in their stead. From the moment of my birth, my life was not my own, I was made to accept that from an early age and since then, I’ve only come to understand it more. I have too much to answer for to allow myself to be driven by anything else.” Duscur. The rebellion he’d ruthlessly crushed. The previous King’s campaign on Sreng. Famines that left those of the Galatea domains weak. The damage the Church of Seiros’ internal discourse has further done to Faerghus, the rotting husk of the Kingdom typically chosen as the battlefield for the Western Church’s conflict. The insatiable demands of the dead that became harder to find peace from. Dimitri’s fist clenched and unclenched over his knee three times before Claude put his hand over it. The tension in Dimitri felt like a lightning strike. His eyes felt like the ozone. 

“This may be out of turn, but I envy you, Claude. You are the future leader of the Leicester Alliance just as I am the future King of Faerghus, yet how do I get to call myself your equal when your ambitions may bring forth the best of humanity, and mine only serve to punish it.” Dimitri deflating. “But I already have my purpose in life.” It was a duty Dimitri couldn’t abandon, one he refused to abandon, for it meant trivializing the deaths of those he had loved, those who had died before his eyes. Yet that didn’t mean Dimitri lacked self awareness. He knew the price to be paid for his single mindedness. But someone had to do it. And if not him, then who else could guarantee what was due? The storm turned to a depression. Dimitri felt tired. 

Claude wasn’t sure how to feel about this. He should feel good. He should feel validated. The Crown Prince of The Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, unmovable and infallible, humbling himself in front of Claude. It didn’t feel as satisfying as he would’ve imagined, he didn’t feel victorious, he felt camaraderie. He felt empathy. Dimitri’s vulnerability was not a victory, not a conquest sweetened by a crushing of pride. Dimitri wasn’t like the nobles of the Alliance, when he spoke it was not as an arrogant politician entitled to the wills of those he was meant to serve. Dimitri wanted to repay the kindness of those he had once known, who he still loved yet could never return. Dimitri spoke like a casket bearer. Heir to an open grave. If Claude’s future was an open sky, Dimitri’s was a bottomless pit. 

This moment was not a silent battle. There was nothing to be won by the pain Dimitri had unearthed before Claude.

They sat quietly in a shared moment of vulnerability, secrets for secrets out of understanding rather than to be equally armed against one another. 

Claude couldn’t keep going like this. He had confidence in Dimitri even though they hadn’t known each other for long, but he knew full well Dimitri would be willing to walk down the path most winding, and it wasn’t his place to trivialize it. He could easily speak out of turn right now if he tried to pick apart Dimitri’s logic and make a very powerful enemy. It would better suit Claude if he could brush it off and accept that they simply walked different paths and those were the burdens Dimitri carried, a different stone yet still crushing all the same. But that didn’t feel right, to simply live with the knowledge yet walk away from it. Did he choose to carry them? Or was it inherited. Within his blood, within the crest, within the crumbling tower that was Foldan’s power structure.

“Your ambitions don’t have to be set in stone, Dimitri.” Claude said. If Dimitri felt he had to carry a duty, then Claude could offer his own, one that was kinder and not a contract written in blood. “And if you ever need a change of pace, well there’s plenty of room over here with mine. My dreams are vast. It might be big enough to hold you, too.” Claude offered. Dimitri’s smile was so melancholic, it squeezed on a part of Claude’s heart he thought had entropied. 

“I would like to hear more about them, if I can.” Dimitri said, turning his hand to lace his fingers with Claude’s. Something bloomed within Claude’s chest. A ray of light pierced the sky for Dimitri. Dimitri wanted to understand Claude, just as Claude wished to understand him.

* * *

At some point in their talk, Dimitri had laid back down. Claude had joined him, laying back, pressed shoulder to shoulder. The mood had lightened as the sky dimmed. Claude took a left turn into a tangent about the poisons he had been studying somewhere along the way. That turned into another change of subject when Dimitri told him that he’d once eaten a buttercup as a child, and Claude shared that his mom had once tricked him into eating coffee grounds by telling him it was chocolate. When Dimitri had fallen asleep, it was a gentle transition. A soft smile on his lips and his eyelids too heavy to keep open, still hanging on Claude’s words even as he slipped into sleep. 

When Claude noticed Dimitri had fallen asleep, he had sat up and turned back to a book he’d put aside earlier. When the candle was two inches less than what it had been when he started reading, that’s when he realized how late it was, and that he should get to sleep.

One problem. Dimitri was in his bed. It was late and Dimitri was in his bed, sound asleep. He’d brought Dimitri to take a nap in the early afternoon and he hadn’t fallen asleep until hours afterward, caught up in the flow of conversation. It was well into the night, they’d missed dinner and now the dining hall was surely closed. Most lights were out and he’d heard some people pass into their own dorms, and though Claude had said he was going to do some late night studying, that was only an excuse. One he didn’t even have to follow through with. 

He hadn’t expected to spend all that time with Dimitri, just laying back on his dorm bed, talking about everything and nothing, it was… nice. Claude didn’t think he’d had a chance to talk with someone like this in a long time, if ever. Definitely not at Garrag Mach. He became close friends with Hilda ever since he’d come into the Alliance and it’s politics, and while her company was invaluable and a blessing in ways he had never expected, what he had with Dimitri right now was… different. Intimate. Something he shouldn’t act on, for both their sakes. So where should Claude sleep? He had some extra blankets, some rugs- maybe he could sneak off and sleep in Dimitri’s room? No, that was weird. 

Claude went to stand up. He failed. He’d been reading ever since he realized Dimitri had fallen asleep and gotten so caught up in the casual closeness, he hadn’t so much as blinked when Dimitri had thrown an arm across his lap. Now that fatigue had set in around the edges of Claude’s mind, he was once again trumped by Dimitri’s predictable and yet somehow unavoidable straight forward nature. 

“Alright. Okay. Alright,” Claude mumbled under his breath. He looked at Dimitri who was peaceful in his slumber. He clicked his tongue. “Alright, Claude, just slip on out, this is child’s play.” He gingerly grabbed Dimitri’s wrist. This guy was way bigger up close. Claude thought Dimitri was kinda lanky when he'd first seen the prince. Turns out the black clothing of his uniform was very slim fitting, and the cape Dimitri wore on his shoulder softened his edges. Claude took the opposite approach to what he wore, trying to keep clothes baggy for free movement and to make him seem not as narrow as he was. But up close like this with Dimitri, without the layer of metal and decorative cloth, he could see the definition of his muscles, his bicep felt as dense as an apple. 

Raphael had mentioned once before that he’d seen Dimitri lift a wagon up right when out in town. Marianne had then shared that Dimitri carried a wounded horse back from the forest as a favor for her. They didn’t have crazy supernatural strength like that where Claude came from, and if he hadn’t seen Dimitri in action on the training grounds and mock battles himself, he wouldn’t have believed it. 

So when Claude tried to lift the arm off him, he disturbed Dimitri’s sleep just enough to get a reaction. And, even if it was a slight one from a man in the twilight stages of consciousness, it was still Dimitri, with Dimitri’s easy strength. There was suddenly a firm grip on his middle. “Heeeyyyy, big guy.”

“Can you stay?” Dimitri murmured, opening one bleary eye to look at him. Claude was warm. He was slender and easy to move and so, so comfortable. He was right, this bed was comfortable. The pillow smelled like lavender. Claude smelled like sandalwood. Dimitri couldn’t remember the last time he’d been warm in his sleep. Sweltering, overheated, panicked, yes, but warm? “Please…” Dimitri used to hold a pillow as he slept, but when that was found out, he was made to stop sleeping with a pillow entirely. By the time he’d gotten one again, the urge had disappeared. But this was similar to that old familiar comfort yet so much better. This was Claude, beautiful and clever, his waist the perfect size for Dimitri’s hands, kind and brilliant, the curls of his hair so charming and soft. He pressed Claude into his chest, cheek in his hair. Soft. So soft. This has to be a dream. Were his dreams ever this kind? Is this what a blessing felt like?

Dimitri’s even breathing signaled his return to true sleep. Claude was enclosed in Dimitri’s arms, and even as the grip loosened into an unconscious hold, Claude didn’t move. His heart was racing, beating so loud in his ears he thought it might wake Dimitri up. He’d been put in a spin when Dimitri had taken his hand and spoken his apology, now he wasn’t sure where his mind was going. He was thinking of everything at once and absolutely nothing, driven into a dead end by several streams of thought and running in circles with others. 

Dimitri’s arms are nice. His chest is firm. His breath grazed Claude’s ear. This is the Crown Prince of Faerghus spooning him. Dimitri had moved him like it was nothing, something so painfully attractive about the way Dimitri dragged him down to lay against him, arms secured around Claude’s waist. Dimitri is warm. This is his friend. This is his friend seeking comfort and Claude wouldn’t lie to himself and pretend he didn’t enjoy this, the warmth and the closeness. Claude’s face burned hotter than any fever he could remember.

At this angle, he could slip out of Dimitri’s hold. He could roll on to his stomach and slip out with minimal disturbance. He could sleep at his desk. On the stretch of table in front of his window. On his meditation mat he kept splayed across the bed as an extra blanket. 

Or. And this might be the selfish part of his brain speaking, he could stop being so weird about this. Claude wanted this, Dimitri clearly wanted this, all that was happening was a night sharing a bed. Cuddling. As friends. That’s it. It was only weird if he made it weird. From the way he was reacting to it, Claude could barely believe himself. He wasn’t a virgin, he’d shared beds with people in the past, for a varying amount of reasons, and he hadn’t been near this nervous any of those times. He was usually little spoon in those situations, too. Even with Hilda at the odd sleep over or post battle exhaustion naps. Nothing frisky about it. Dimitri’s hips weren’t even pressed to him, he wasn’t with the chance of being rutted up against- alright, thoughts were going too south, head in the gutter, back it up, Claude.

Cuddling. They were cuddling. Was Claude uncomfortable? No. On the contrary, this was incredibly comfortable. Being kept in place so he didn’t risk falling off the bed, warm and reassured, he already blew out the candle before he attempted to get up so that wasn’t something he had to worry about, and anywhere in the world that wasn’t right here exactly would’ve felt like a prison. Usually Claude would lock his door before sleeping, the well placed fear of assassins training such habits, and there should be a knife under his pillow.

But being at the heart of a lion's den was its own security. 

Eventually, Claude fell asleep. His mind slowed, he relaxed in Dimitri’s arms, and fell asleep feeling safe. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please excuse any typos you may see im hella dyslexic and editing is nearly impossible but YEAH lmao here we are. Slow burn ahoy


	3. Rumors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Outside characters seeing what is brewing between the two house leaders. Mercedes, Linhardt, and Seteth povs.

“It’s rare for you to be a part of these things, Your Majesty.” Mercedes said, her voice as light as the smell of baking sugar in the air. “Though I have to say, I appreciate your help. Whoever puts the sugar on the top shelf is so inconsiderate to the rest of us!” Mercedes complained light heartedly, standing hip to hip with Dimitri as they washed the dishes used to prepare the sweets now baking in the oven. Some buttery cookies Mercedes often made, perfect with tea, sweet but not overwhelming, and something Dimitri had never sought out before. Nothing he was ever rude enough to turn down when offered, but not something he’d asked Mercedes for before. Less of all wanting to help in its preparation. 

“Yes, well, there have been times I’ve wanted to participate in your baking before. Everyone loves your baking, apart from the obvious,” Felix. “-and it must be difficult to meet demands. I must admit to being curious about it before but kept away from it others well being.” Dimitri explained, lips pursed as he concentrated on scrubbing away a bit of dried sugar from a bowl. It would’ve been easy to scrape it off, just as it would be easy to crush the metal bowl in his hand. He was trying to avoid this, and Mercedes had been wise enough to appoint him cleaning duty only to things that couldn’t shatter and embed themselves in Dimitri’s hands. They’d had enough of that from Dimitri’s attempts at needle work.

“I’ve kept away for your sake more than anything. I’m more or less capable of following a recipe, but what I lack in nuance could easily lead to food poisoning. I’m sorry you had to supervise me, Mercedes, but I’m grateful you agreed.” Dimitri went on, letting himself speak freely of his thanks. He thought Mercedes didn’t get enough of it, and it was hard to overstate his gratitude. 

“May I ask what made you change your mind? You didn’t grow a sweet tooth, did you? Is this a special occasion?”

“It could be defined as such, yes.” 

“Oh, no, I didn't miss someone's birthday, did I??” 

“Not as far as I’m aware, though there could be a mismarking on my calendar. But no, it’s not a birthday gift.”

“What a relief.” She sighed. “Do you intend to give them to someone?” Mercedes looked at Dimitri, a tilt of her head as a question arose. It was far fetched, but now that it had entered her thoughts, it wouldn’t leave. “Are you going on a date?” 

The metal bowl dented under Dimitri’s fingers.

“Oh, goodness.” Mercedes put the dish she was holding down to take the warped bowl from Dimitri’s hands, looking between the prince and the poorly fated kitchenware. Dimitri’s ears burned. 

So, it was like that! Dimitri grimaced, expression knit with silent appall. Mercedes was just as surprised, she didn’t think she would figure him out just as Dimitri thought he wouldn’t be figured out so easily.

“I-I am so, so sorry, Mercedes, here, allow me,” he gently took the bowl back from her hands, pressing his thumbs into the dents and pushing them back out with a careful amount of force. He’d gotten better at controlling his strength for delicate tasks, but she had caught him off guard.

“Don’t worry, Dimitri, I shouldn’t have asked such a forward question.” She dried her hands, placing a temperanced hand to Dimitri’s arm, giving him a reassuring pat. His face was still red, eyes fixed stubbornly on the bowl, still completely and utterly exposed. 

“No, it’s my fault, I should’ve been more careful. I assure you, it’s nothing I should be getting worked up about.” And yet here he was.

“My! You make it sound so scandalous!” She teased, giving him a little shake. “Are you courting someone? I know some students have marriages arranged while at the academy, but I would’ve thought you’d have to wait until being coronated.”

“It’s not,” He stopped to clear his throat. “It’s not a courtship.” He said, voice returning to an even tone. “I do intend to give these sweets to someone, but it isn’t a courtship. And though I failed to make it clear, it’s not a date, either. Nothing of the sort.” 

“You’re right. A courtship would be a highly political ordeal for you, wouldn’t it.” Mercedes mused, twirling a finger through her own hair as she thought it over.

“That’s right.” Dimitri evened out finger sized dent before continuing, “As you may know, the hand of the royal family and other high nobles can only be given in a matter of official courtship, for whoever we become involved with will inevitably come to affect the kingdom as a whole. Though it is an old standard of practice, and one often overlooked by Sylvain and others of his temperament, it is not one I may neglect.” Dimitri explained, talking himself into despondency. “Dating around isn’t a luxury I can afford, anything less than official courtship is to be considered an affair by those of the royal court.” 

“An affair, then?”

The bowl was lost. Crushed beyond salvation. Mercedes knew full well what she was doing this time, having the decency to cover her mouth to dampen her laughter in the face of her future king. 

“It is not an affair, Mercedes. And even if it were in the vein of a romance, who am I seeing would deserve better than to be called part of something so uncouth as an affair.” Dimitri said, more pointed now that he felt another’s honor was at stake and not just his own.

“Oh, Your Highness. You’re right. I didn’t mean to suggest you and your companion were doing anything unsavory, but seeing you get so wound up was too precious to keep quiet about.” She freed Dimitri’s hands from anything that could be victim to his spikes of nervousness. “I’ll have this set aside for smelting.” She said, the bowl taller than it was wide now. 

Mercedes had hoped, when she first saw Emile growing into himself, that she could have moments like this, needling at him over whoever might’ve caught his eye, offering advice as a sister should, or just an ear for worries of the heart. Of course, all those young girls' dreams were crushed long ago, but imagining such scenarios in her child’s mind had prepared her for this moment. Dimitri always had trouble finding people to relate to on issues that put him on the level as a person and not a prince. Mercedes herself was rarely treated as anything but a bargaining chip. This they could both relate to.

“Whoever you are seeing must be someone special to make you want to bring a gift.” She eased up on the subject of courtship, not wanting to step into the subject of political marriages. “If you’d like, I could wrap them up! Something to make up for the ‘uncouth’ comment.” Mercedes offered, thinking about a lovely emerald ribbon she could use to help Dimitri on his ‘absolutely not romantic’ meeting. 

She could sense that Dimitri was about to refuse, still in the mindset to reflexively rebuff anything that could imply him going against his duties, so she quickly added “A nice box perfect for sweets, it’ll keep them from going stale if your friend can’t finish them all in one sitting.” That seemed to convince him. 

“You’re right, I hadn’t considered how I would be presenting them.” He put a hand to his chin, realized it was still wet, and smoothed his hands on the tunic of his uniform to dry. Mercedes couldn’t recall a time she had seen Dimitri openly nervous, and she could tell he was avoiding saying just who he was going to see- not something typical of just a casual interest in another person. She was sure if she asked, Dimitri would answer truthfully, but she had needled him enough, and with a kingdom to hold, the least he could be allowed was to enjoy himself with someone he fancied, without the worry of rumors. 

It was easy to forget how young Dimitri was, so she would let the elephant in the room pass by without comment, and let Dimitri keep his feelings secret. 

“You clear the drying rack and I’ll be back with something to wrap these all up! But please, try not to break anything, Your Highness.”

* * *

There was a spot of grass in the courtyard softer than all the rest. Cornered between the east end and the right turn that lead to the cathedral bridge. The foot traffic on free days were sparse because the classrooms were empty and it was out of the way from the dining hall and training grounds. There was enough sunlight to keep Linhardt warm but not enough to burn through his eyelids and keep him awake. He could just be in his room, but that was the most predictable place to find him and bug the young mage for a task he was sure someone else would be willing to do. This was strategic, well thought out and well enjoyed.

Until Claude came to ruin it. 

He could tell it was Claude by the cautious and curious steps he took, not knowing Linhardt well enough to tell the difference between sleep and almost sleep, but being clever enough to know where to find someone when he wanted them. Something Hubert thankfully lacked, but the Golden Deer leader was responsible for the recent bout of tension between the two mages of the Black Eagles, so it was hard to pay Claude compliments at the moment. 

“You’re blocking my sun.” Linhardt finally spoke, Claude having been stood still for too long and Linhardt didn’t particularly like being observed- no, studied, the way Claude would with people when he thought others weren’t looking. He peered up at Claude, opening a single eye and no more.

“It’s this bright outside and you’re trying to take nap?” Claude asked, still not moving from the spot of warmth Linhardt was being robbed of.

“Are you here to pester me on the finer points of napping or are you going to get to why you’re here to bother me.” Linhardt rolled on to his side. If he wasn’t going to get his sunny spot he at least wasn’t going to look at Claude.

“Come on, are you still miffed at me? That bet was your idea, don’t have to be such a sore loser over it.” Claude said, either not taking the hint or simply not accepting it. The glare he sent Claude deserves both eyes for that.

“You mean that game you swore on your name you hadn’t played before?” Linhardt was awake enough to be irritated. How unlucky for the both of them. 

The game in question was one unique to the heart of Adrestian culture. Emperors Folly. A bit of a tricky game for its unconventional set up. One player had two thirds of the board and a mass of weaker red pieces, while the other had the remaining third of the board and a narrow group of stronger black pieces. Captured pieces could be used by whoever captured it but had the risk of being recaptured by the opposing player, giving the player the choice of using the captured piece or discarding it from the game entirely. The game ended when only one side's pieces remained. 

It was highly debated if the game was biased to one side over the other, and if so then which side? Would one play swiftly and discard as many pieces as they could, or would one try to capture as many as possible and lose sight of the game’s victory in a swell of numbers. 

Linhardt wasn’t fond of political philosophy but it was a game he’d been made to play since a young child. Claude had beaten him five games in a row.

“I swore on a name, didn’t say it was gonna be mine.” Claude deflected.

“You’re really bad at asking people for things. Especially people you hustled.” Linhardt sat up, knowing there was no return to rest until this was dealt with. “The sooner you stop dancing around it the sooner I can get back to my nap, so out with it.” 

“Funny you bring up that game. Gosh, what was it called again??” Claude bluffed.

“You’re not doing yourself any favors.”

“Right, right. So. Rematch?”

“Goodbye, Claude.” Linhardt flopped back down, covering his eyes with his forearm to refuse further conversation. 

“Come on! Don’t be such a spoilsport, we can even have another go at that bet? Know any card games that I definitely wouldn’t? Double or nothing.”

“Now do tell, how exactly would I get the double out of this? Do you have a second crest I’d be able to examine?” 

“I don’t, but I have my own fair share of secrets I’m sure you’d want an ear to.”

Alright, he was testing Linhardt’s patience. He shot Claude an unamused look. “Like what? Your little rendezvous with the Faerghus Prince?” Linhardt asked dryly. That shut up Claude faster than he’d think was possible, the false smile twitching with the realization of what Linhardt knew. “Oh, I’m sorry, did you think you were the only ones who snuck out at night? What do you think all these naps make up for.” Linhardt asked, a hand covering his yawn as he let Claude steep in his thoughts. “Is that why you’re here? Did you burn through Hubert’s coffee stash with His Highness and now you’re looking for more? I don’t blame you for not going to him directly, Goddess knows it’s a chore to get past him when he’s off doing whatever creepy henchmen do in their spare time.” 

He peered back at Claude. Huh. If Linhardt hadn’t known better, he’d almost describe the look Claude had as troubled. He shouldn’t pity that look. Claude wasn’t one to accept pity and Linhardt wasn’t one to hand it out.

But perhaps a small part of him was a romantic. The little glimpse of their library dates was toothrot sweet, and if Claude knew that Linhardt knew, maybe it’d work out in being left alone.

“If it’s any consolation I think I’m the only one who knows and certainly I’m not one to care. There’s all sorts of sneaking around people do when they think no ones awake. Besides, the trouble the knowledge of your affair would stir is more than I’m willing to deal with, even in passing.” 

“You’re being real presumptuous in dubbing it an affair like that. For all you know we could be scheming against the entirety of Fodlan under the guise of late night meet ups.” Claude’s defensive tone was tied up in sarcastic airs.

“The fact you want me to suspect conspiracy before a crush on Garreg Mach’s most eligible bachelor just speaks more for how you’re taken with His Highness. Now are we done here, or should I pass on knowledge of who drank Hubert’s stash to the bucket of spiders himself?”

Claude may have won their game of Emperors Folly but he took the loss on this one, finally stepping out of Linhardt’s light with that final blow. Honestly he felt kinda bad rubbing it in Claude’s face the way he did, he was a guy with more secrets than smiles and it didn’t take a genius to tell that an heir who popped out of nowhere had a lot to hide. And he wasn’t bad to play games with, even though Linhardt was still sore over getting hustled.

Maybe he’d take up Professor Byleth’s offer of joining the Golden Deer after all. Goddess knew Hubert wasn’t pleasant company.

And if you speak of the devil, it’ll appear.

“I would say pardon the interruption, but I’ve heard my name more times than I would count as polite so we’re obviously passed the need for manners.” Hubert said, now suffocating the air and sucking up every patch of warmth on the continent. He took it back. Claude could get thrown under the wagon for how that schemer ruined his nice noon nap. He would tell Hubert and Hubert would tell Edelgard and their combined judgmental gazes would be enough to drive both Claude and his totally not boyfriend into the ground. Claude stepped back, likely to scamper off and leave Linhardt with Her Majesty’s shadow.

“It’s nothing. Just that everybody heard that Manuela’s looking for you. You wouldn’t have happened to get into her medical herbs as of late, have you?” Claude asked, casually folding his hands behind his head, cocking a knowing look up at Hubert, a choked protest as answer from the Black Eagles retainer. “I hear ginseng is incredibly hard to come by in the wild, who wouldn’t notice it missing, right, Lin?”

...Alright, maybe he read Claude all wrong. He wasn’t foolish enough to pass up such an easy out. Of course Claude would notice that kind of sneaking around.

“Ginseng? Mm, was that what Her Majesty wanted brewed in her morning tea? Or was it ginger? But who drinks herbal teas to wake up. I guess you’d know better than anyone, Hubert.”

“Yeah, you’d know, right, ‘Hubie’?” Claude had picked up on Dorothea’s nicknames and that humored Linhardt so much that he wished he was crass enough to laugh in Hubert’s face. But he didn’t. This was more satisfying. 

Hubert was pinned down so fast by their joint accusations that he buckled, scoffing as his best and only form of retaliation.

“I don’t need to deal with these rumors and baseless allegations.” He spat venom to compensate for the fact he had nothing better to say, reeling back as if taking a physical blow. From the looks Claude exchanged with Linhardt, it might as well have been. 

“You do, actually, Manuela’s our professor.” Linhardt reminds nonchalantly. “But what would I know, maybe a hangover knocked that thought loose from her mind already. A little help?” Linhardt gathered his bag, the one he’d been using as a pillow, and extended a hand to Claude who swiftly brought the mage to his feet. It seems they reached an understanding. They’d make their escape while Hubert was still buffering the information and thinly veiled taunts. “No matter, I’m off now. I believe there was talk of a rematch?” 

Linhardt would then go ask Professor Byleth about transferring classes.

* * *

Byleth Eisner had not been what Seteth had expected.

Nor had they been a surprise that was welcome, but then proved to be someone Seteth had needed. He had not remembered a life untouched by grief or politics or war, he hadn’t remembered what falling in love felt like, what a smile earned could stir in his heart or a life where his world hadn’t been restricted to two people. One of them too blinded by old wounds to do right by those around her in the present, and one his daughter, who looked so much like her mother that the fear of loss was strengthened by the grief of his past one.

Byleth was something different entirely. Hidden from the world much like Seteth and his small wounded family had been, singled out by Rhea for whatever their existence did to benefit her maddened plans. Then put in charge of young people incredibly important to their continent without a second thought as to if this stranger was capable of protecting those entrusted to Garreg Mach’s Officers Academy, let alone leading and shaping them.

Seteth waited for a tragedy born of gross neglect and blind ambition to befall, all stemmed around Byleth and the inevitable failings of humans and unqualification.

It never came. Instead something else very human and very kind grew in its place, compassion that poured like rain from the once mercenary filled the gaps left by the selfish judgement of Rhea. A care that had been unexpected from a mercenary, from the one who looked so resigned from the world, untethered to the troubles that had led them to Garreg Mach and currently controlled their existence. 

Apathy for apathy, Seteth had once thought. Too caught up in their own life to care for those whose lives now depended on them. He’d never been happier to be wrong or to know someone whose heart spoke so softly, so sweetly, yet so truthfully. The once saint never believed himself able to fall in love again. This, too, he was wrong about. 

But if Rhea ever knew of this? If she had ever deemed Byleth’s life an expendable one and knew Seteth would have protested? It would have been dangerous. Not just for the both of them, but for Flayn. For Jeralt. For their students.

So they met in secret, for a heart that wanted of anything would act on it eventually. The moon was full on that night, the sky clear, the lake calm and the stars beautiful. Byleth had planned for them to meet on that night, less so asking and more so speaking it into reality, acting as if Seteth had already agreed to it and expected it. If he was any less fond of them, he would’ve rebuffed such a request. If he was any less fond, he wouldn’t have brought a basket or wine or the time to be inconspicuous. 

Flayn was safe from the Death Knight, Jeralt was off gathering information of some village, the students had vacated for curfew, and for the first time in weeks he felt peace of mind and the willingness to have something come from it. They would have a date. This was a date.

It was supposed to be a date.

As the couple rounded the corner from Byleth’s room at the dorms to the lake side of the monastery, the spot the two had been planning to occupy on their date was already taken. It wasn’t unusual for him to catch students sneaking around past curfew. Many of those here had never been expected to behave according to the boarding standards of another and felt entitled to every bit of earth they wished to step on, and it was Seteth’s job to stomp out such ideals of ownership and disrespect. He would do so right now, have Byleth wait until he chased off the miscreants from their chosen spot and then enjoy their time together.

That would be the case, and something Seteth wouldn’t have thought twice about doing, if not for who it was that took up the end of the docks. 

Two of the Officer Academy’s house leaders, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd and Claude von Riegan, two students and future leaders who were meant to be setting an example to all the others enrolled, out late at night, sitting too close to be a friendly coincidence. With Seteth’s keen ears he picked up the sound of laughter, low and endearing, and the hushed tones of the Riegan heir who explained the stars as he pointed them out, describing the constellations before them, the myths assigned to each, the stars they could see because of the season and the ones they couldn’t because of the brightness of the moon. The Faerghus prince shared the myths he knew from his home and the star named for Blaiddyd. They should _both_ be in their dorms.

“Unbelievable.” Seteth scowled, placing the basket down and squaring his shoulders. “I shall have this settled at once. I cannot allow such prominent figures within the academy to act against our conduct in such a way. If you will give me a moment-“

“Wait.” Byleth said, their even voice enough to mute the forest of all its birds and the sea of all its waves. A hand went to his shoulder. He looked back, meeting their vast eyes and their calm expression. “Let them have this. Young love is precious.” Byleth spoke as someone who had never been allowed to experience it. Seteth had. Once, with someone long dead, when the world was different and his mother still alive. It felt like the most important thing, a moment that seemed to never end yet was gone too fast to be defined for what it was in the moment. Byleth smiles at him. Love was real again, not just a memory to be coveted from a different world.

“...Fine. Just this once, though, and this better not be because one of them is from your class.” Seteth buckled and acted as if the decision to yield was harder than it actually was. 

“It isn’t. I think it’s sweet.” Byleth said.

They then smirked, holding on to Seteth’s arm and standing on their toes to reach whispering height. “And I much rather we spend time in my room.”

Oh, Goddess, please forgive his lust for the wielder of your sacred crest. 


	4. No hard feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle of Eagle and Lion is upon us. Claude has something to prove, everything to lose, and a crush that won't quit. Overall, it ends up being a day with much to celebrate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the long absence! I'm so bad at summaries but I am rather proud of this one!

When Claude first heard of the Battle of Eagle and Lion, he was confused as to why the Golden Deer participated in something they weren’t even named for. But to exclude would be an insult and to rename one of Fodlan’s many weird traditions was utterly taboo. So here Claude was, unaccounted for yet very much present, excluded in name yet not presence. He was used to it. It sucked, but he was used to it. A third aspect to be accommodated for, an outside force, an outsider representing the further divide of Fodlan. While the ways of the Empire and the Kingdom had been set in stone, the Alliance and it’s political structure was still infantile in comparison. 

And Claude was nervous. He would never say as much, but he was so nervous. Nobility from all across the continent gathered to witness their heirs compete in battle, and while that might’ve only been a dozen or so families, that was still more power held in one place than any other event that Claude has attended in Fodlan thus far. All on Gronder Field.

More Empire families showed than anybody else, followed by those of the Alliance nobility and then a small handful of Kingdom names. Linhardt’s father gifted him a new chess set, Ferdinand’s father had received the deadliest glare Lysithea had ever mustered. Felix’s father made it and greeted Dimitri warmly because the prince’s uncle had stayed behind. Sylvain’s father left a sour taste in Claude’s mouth for reasons distinct to the flavor of governmental corruption and brutalist societal expectations so intensely unique to Faerghus. Knowing Miklan had come from the scorn of that man was less than surprising. Sylvain was so uncomfortable that he hadn’t even stopped to oggle Cornelia. 

Claude’s grandfather, too old to make the journey, wasn’t in attendance, but Lorenz’s insufferable father was sure to make it and make his disapproval of Claude known. He was sure there were many more people of importance he had failed to catch a glimpse of since there was nothing more than a spattering of reunions when the students had first arrived.

Naturally, he tried to play it off the best he could. Claude had come to the Academy as a means to further his plans, shape his ambitions and lead to a future he knew possible by being an example of newer and better things to come. If he lost miserably, he would only be an example of a fool. Those outside the Alliance would take him as proof of failure in the Alliance’s unprecedented governing structure and those within the Alliance would consider him a lacking heir to the Riegan dukedom. The more important it became, the less important Claude had to let it seem. Aloofness was a form of protection. Too much was on the line and he couldn’t give ammunition to those who’d see him replaced.

Right before the battle began, the house leaders would meet, exchange tense notions of goodwill and fair play, pay respects and assert their intention to fight and to win. 

“Do not linger. I will not accept a victory that comes from the two of you standing idle and missing the battle.” Edelgard had said, being the first to dismiss herself from their meeting. She stepped back as if to leave, but stopped as Dimitri and Claude were in full view of her. Claude had spent so much time with the prince that he hadn’t been aware of how close they were standing until their shoulders brushed. Edelgard’s keen eyes scrutinized the contact. Dimitri stepped to the side. 

An admission of guilt.

Obviously she knew something was between him and Dimitri, the house leaders met semi regularly as instructed by the academy and the two of them would sit so close, banter easily in the midst of serious discussions, and Edelgard wasn’t one to hesitate on calling them out for getting off topic. Claude often flirted with Dimitri and unfortunately, Edelgard was far less oblivious to that fact than Dimitri himself.

It was nothing too serious or too distracting, and helped keep the atmosphere pleasant and issues easier to get through in darker times.

If she didn’t care before, she cared now. 

If relations were good between the future leaders of the two adjacent nations, it would leave her and the Empire as a third wheel. Perhaps she felt that. Perhaps she resented it. Or maybe she didn’t care, but something sat on Claude’s shoulder and told him there was more to her stiff stature and razor looks than could be gathered outside of her closest circle. 

“And if you plan on teaming up against me, know your losses will only be greater, showing your inability in individual capabilities.” 

“Yeesh. Calm down, Princess. What do you think I’m gonna do?” Claude asked, insulted but knowing better than to address it with Edelgard, who thought her own polite cruelty to be helpful. “I for one am looking forward to this battle. This may be the battle of the Eagle and Lion, but I’m planning to prove a Deer's place in all this. I’m just here to say not to take the loss too personally.” He tried to lighten the mood, as he often did at their meetings. A good sign that his wisecracking was well met would be if she rolled her eyes. 

Her gaze didn’t waver.

“I have to agree with Claude on this, I’m not sure what you’re implying.” Dimitri said, standing to attention like the good little soldier boy he is. Standing straight and further away.

“If you think yourselves subtle you must think the entirety of Garegg Mach blind.” Edelgard laid out bluntly, acting like she had caught them in something. “I know of your habits to run off alone together, and given your perpetuant schemes and strength disadvantage, why would I think you wouldn’t seek out aid to compensate for such. The Blue Lions lack range skills and tact. Their leaders are often seen consorting. If I weren’t suspicious I would be a fool.”

Claude kept his composure careful under the accusatory gaze of Edelgard, not a twitch to his shielding smile. She was right but it made it no less crass that she laid out their weaknesses as blatantly as if she were commenting on a mouse in a trap. She had called him weak. He had been called weak many times, he knew how to remain unflinching by it.

“You’d do well to pardon yourself.” The Prince beside Claude said rigidly. Dimitri, however, was free to express his insult. Claude liked to think that maybe, just maybe he was insulted on Claude’s behalf, too. He was never one to be curt with Edelgard, his _sister_ of all people, who would never hold back a curt rejection of good will from Dimitri. But there was a first time for everything.

“If you think I would have such little faith for those under my or Claude’s leadership, then perhaps your foolishness lies elsewhere. If you’re driven to slader with such implications, then you’d better be suited to reflect inward than to scrutinize our relationship.” He broke Edelgard’s stare to look at Dimitri, surprised and putting a pause to his hurt ego. 

Oh Claude would have relished this, Dimitri getting the closest to a direct insult Claude has ever heard, to Edelgard of all people. What a treat Dimitri firing back would’ve been- at any other moment but literally right now, when faced with an accusation from a powerful foe in the wake of battle. It wasn’t hard to tell when someone had gone their lives without hesitation in their assertions or fear for what a grudge could do to one's safety. Claude currently stood between two such people.

With the cold, uncompromising way Edelgard stared back at Dimitri after his rebuff, he knew this was about to get bad. He had to step in.

This wasn’t new to Claude either. Almost as familiar as being an outsider, was the act as a mediator between two of his older brothers with enough power to throw around that it made everybody in the room anxious. If the middle man had to lay in Claude once more, then so be it. 

He briefly wished he could be so bold with his pride, afford the risks standing firmly against accusations could bring- but he couldn’t. He wasn’t about to try now.

“While you make a solid point there, you’re kinda missing one major thing, Your Majesty.” Claude said before Edelgard could snap back, waving a hand to dispel the tension that came in like a crack of lightning, breaking the tense eye contact the two royals were holding. All eyes on him. Trapped between the Eagle and Lion, the lion who groomed yet who never let his strength be forgotten by the proximity to his teeth, and the eagle, who owned the skies, whose talons were always out, who struck fast and without mercy. Then came the deer, with no inherited advantage but what survival had trained him to be, the wit that flourished from necessity, from caution. To slip between the swipes and avoid the bloodiest of it, something had to give, and that typically landed to Claude.

“This guy’s about as crafty as a brick, you think if we were plotting against you it wouldn’t have come out by now?” Sorry, Dimitri, take the blow with him. “And if you think I’m that easy of an enemy that I’d need to throw myself at the mercy of a dashing prince, you’re underestimating me and my allies. We may not have won the mock battle but you forget who our professor is.” 

That seemed to make Edelgard relent, if just for the dull ache in her eyes. She did adore Byleth, ever since they had saved her life back in Remire. He would almost feel bad, knowing Edelgard’s adoration for their professor was so one sided. “Then what else could all those excursions be for?” She asked, not letting it drop completely as to not show how effective the mention of their professor was.

Dimitri caught his eye as Claude looked to him, both searching for an acceptable answer from the other. Claude scratched his cheek. Huh. He didn’t think he’d have to be defining their relationship so soon. If he could relate with Edelgard on anything, it was the ache of a one-sided longing. He couldn’t say too much that would expose his feelings to Dimitri, either. How was he going to skirt this one-

“I’ve taken to Claude.” Dimitri said before Claude could think of something, startling him. “And our responsibilities leave us void of free time in the day, so we typically go out later in the night. I assure you there are no nefarious intentions to our meetings.” Dimitri looked from Edelgard back to him, smiling something small yet meaningful. “He’s become dear to me, and I would never do him the disservice of underestimating him. I’m quite excited to see what this battle has in store, so I’m prepared to give both fronts my full effort.” Dimitri delivered it smoothly and without hesitation, admitting his fondness for Claude like it was something easy. Claude would’ve never shown his hand like that, especially to Edelgard, who kept so many secrets that it likely rivaled Claude in his own.

They couldn’t buff down the honest delivery of Dimitri’s feelings, even though Claude could tell they’d been prepared to pick apart whatever explanation he gave to get to the truth, it was ultimately freely given. Claude didn’t think he’d be exchanging looks of understanding with Edelgard, of all people. Dimitri always surprised him.

“Very well. Then I retract my accusation.” Edelgard said to not seem caught off guard. Some apology that was. “If those late night excursions have made you sloppy, know I feel no pity for my triumph.” Edelgard said, her way of acknowledging them, he guessed. Judging by the way Dimitri beamed back at her, all malice forgotten, he was right. 

“There’s no such thing as an easy victory, and I’m not about to start handing them out.” Claude said, glad for this to be wrapped up with relatively unhurt feelings.

“Now if you will excuse me,” Edelgard turned back once more, marching off to her awaiting class.

“That could've gotten nasty.” Claude spoke once Edelgard was out of ear shot. He gave Dimitri his best puzzled yet innocent look, an eyebrow hiked up in question. “I didn’t expect you to puff up like that, what gives?” Dimitri adjusted his cape.

“I surprised myself, frankly. I… didn’t like what was being implied about you.” Dimitri said, being painfully endearing in the way he blushed. How could Claude not tease him for that. “I’m sorry, my temper got the better of me. I wish I hadn’t acted the way I did, but I don’t regret asserting my respect for you and that she should feel the same.”

Claude had no idea how Dimitri said the things he did and expected not to get a facetious response. It was the best way to cover up how sheepish he felt receiving those compliments. 

“Oh, my prince, sooo chivalrous,” Claude said, dramatically fanning himself. He threw himself on Dimitri, wrapping both arms around one of Dimitri’s. “Whatever would I do without my dashing champion defending my honor. I would be lost, lost I say! Almost as lost as I am in your eyes~” He’d gotten too cheeky, Dimitri yanked his arm away.

“Enough! If you’re hoping to distract me from battle with your comments then you’ve truly lost it.” He huffed, turning his head and giving Claude a good view of the pink on Dimitri’s ears. 

“I’ll see you on the battlefield, Your Nobleness.” Claude said, folding his arms behind his head and walking backward toward his class. Dimitri spared him one more smile before going off to the Blue Lions. Even if that encounter with his fellow house leaders had been tense in more ways than one, it had helped Claude get his mind cleared up and ready for battle. 

He knew Fodlan was only one part of the world, despite how closed off it kept itself, but on the field, leading a third of the battles charge, he felt the world would be watching. Claude couldn’t fumble this. He wouldn’t.

* * *

Dimitri never understood the symbol of a deer- and he made no illusion that he may, but he didn’t need to understand it’s significance the way Leicester Alliance founders did to respect it, and he did respect it. But a prey animal, one common in hunting and game, was there anything to be proud of it’s visage upon your person?

He didn’t understand until he had lost to Claude in the battle of Eagle and Lion. A defeat so beautiful, so careful in its execution as to weave itself like water over a canyon, mountains turned to rubble in a river bed under the persistence and careful handling of the rain.

Claude had stood over him as the call for battle ended, the noon sun curling itself around Claude’s silhouette in a way that Dimitri envied. It was a moment he would never dare share, for what could be said of a king who basked in the sweetness of defeat? He wished his fingers could curl through Claude’s hair the way the light did, but only if it meant not missing this moment. When Claude’s victory had become clear through Seteth’s announcement, Dimitri got to watch as joy and pride blossomed from Claude’s heaving chest and into his truer smile, eyes alight, his victory known and the dawning of success upon him as brilliant as the stars Claude admired so much. 

Victory against him and Edelgard had not been easy. Dimitri had been true to giving the battle all his efforts, and he knew that for what Claude dreamed of achieving, to give anything less than his full effort was so great an insult that it should be a sin. 

Claude extended his hand to him once again, like he had done so many times before, and the briefest thought came over Dimitri that he would not be allowed to take it for fear of his hand passing through, for such beauty could be a visage not meant for the touch of man.

But Claude was not a visage, not a mirage of ideals, not the crystallization of prayers or anything so undeserving as the image of a goddess and all her grace that humanity would never come close to deserving or being sorry enough for squandering.

Claude was a man, much like him. His ambitions weren’t placed in the unanswered calls to a goddess, or the endless penance Dimitri’s life was purposed for. And suddenly Dimitri understood. Untouchable strength and ferociousness was not what carved the earth or made the forest grow, and nature was not something that needed to be claimed by those sitting highest above it. Not a god, not one of nature’s proudest predators, but one that understood itself as a part of the world around it, one whose prosperity didn’t come through domination, but persistence and a tireless belief in that world. 

He took Claude’s hand. He didn’t let it go after standing. Claude followed his face as he rose. 

If Dimitri were a lesser man, one with lesser restraint or respect, one with lesser rein over his impulses, he would have kissed Claude then. He would’ve pressed his lips to Claude’s smile, he would’ve brushed his fingers over the back of Claude’s neck like the sun did and pulled him in. His smile and his joy and his beauty could be the first thing Dimitri tasted in years. He could seal this moment close to his heart and remember it every time the sun shined highest. 

Of course, Dimitri didn’t. He couldn’t. He couldn’t take what Claude did not freely offer, even if his dreams of such were so vivid that they could bleed into reality, even if Claude’s once or twice playful kiss to his cheek would linger too long and too close to his lips. He knew not if Claude would want for him and if he did, then not at a moment like this, where eyes from all of Fodlan’s most important nobles watched. He couldn’t take that victory from Claude, the joy was not his to share in. The consequences would be immediate, he knew this. They’d be immediate and they’d almost be worth it. 

“You are truly... amazing.” Dimitri whispered instead, to do something with his mouth that wasn’t needless gaping or wanting. 

The two leaders were flushed and sweaty from the exertion of battle, but if a blush were possible after such efforts, then Dimitri’s affection might be too obvious, and Claude’s racing heart would be with one cause instead of two. The moment between them could’ve stretched to the day's last breath or been in the span of a single heartbeat for all Dimitri knew of the world outside of this, of Claude’s eyes, his delight, as bright as looking into the sun and far sweeter a burn, far more radiant a sight.

“We did it!” Raphael hoisted Claude into the air with a bear hug, the lithe Golden Deer leader helpless to being tossed in the sky by his gleeful classmate. “We actually pulled that off! You were right, Claude, it all worked out!”

“Raphael!” Hilda scolded, jogging up to them, her other classmates not far behind. “If you drop him on the head he’s not gonna be able to go to that feast you two talked so much about.”

“Hey, Hilda! Did you see that? That magic bow, hah! I thought it was just dead weight!” Raphael barked a laugh, Claude managed to wrangle himself out without injury, feet touching the ground once more.

Claude looked at Dimitri and then to his approaching class. The moment was gone. Claude's hand had since left his own and Dimitri mourned it immediately.

“Congratulations.” He said as a parting word, readying himself for the disappointment he would face from the Blue Lions. Claude’s triumph was not his to share. Dimitri walked away, before he did something foolish. 

_You've been foolish enough._ A voice said, close to his ear and venomous, familiar in who it had once belonged to, learned again with cruelty. He stopped, frantic to find what he knew wasn’t there, not physically. The sun no longer on his back, a biting chill running down his spine. His feet frozen, jagged ice biting to his heel, the weight of the cold dead pressing to his back, those he owed too much to. 

They were right. Dimitri didn’t know how right they were. 

* * *

The return from Gronder Field was one filled with chatter and laughter, they didn’t travel back divided by classes but rather flowing freely between whoever drew the attention of another, surprisingly little hard feelings from those outside the Golden Deer class who hadn’t won. There was a grand meal in the dining hall when they arrived, one Claude found delight in for how much like a feast it was. Maybe those of Fodlan weren’t one to call things a feast, the connotation too underclassed for those at the Academy- but even by a different name, it had the same nature. The same sense of comradery, the air still full of chatter and laughter, the smell of good food and the delight of good company. 

Even Byleth, their professor with the distant way they usually spoke to those around them, who was one for quick escapes and short sentences, sat with them, feeling more human now than ever. And it was them who caught Claude’s attention, a light touch to his forearm that felt like the press of a ghost trying to catch his spirit by the cuff. Claude was caught up soaking in the good vibes, and if it wasn’t for Byleth, he wouldn’t have noticed Dimitri walking out of the dinning hall, one of the first to leave a party that was barely beginning.

“Before you lose track of him.” Byleth said as they pointed to the door, Dimitri’s blue cape fluttering as he departed. “I thought you would like to know.” That knowing look in Byleth’s eyes was hard not to be unsettled by, even when Claude was grateful that such a powerful ally was offering it to him. Most of the time it felt like they were looking directly into Claude’s mind, a feeling he despised but couldn’t make known- except for right now, where having something known about him was met with gratitude.

“Where’s he going off to…” Claude stood up, no question that he would follow, having wanted to at least share some of this festivity with Dimitri. That couldn’t be done if he disappeared. “Thanks, Teach.” Claude said, getting a deadpanned thumbs up in response that he would’ve laughed at if it didn’t mean slipping away would be harder. Luckily for him, everyone was caught up in their own conversations, and those who tried to stop him got met with an excuse that let him get away without coming off as harsh. He had managed to get past Ignatz by telling the artist he had something in his hair and got out the lake facing doors without getting caught up further. 

That’s where he saw Dimitri. Off to the side, hidden by distance from the door, easy to miss if you were just looking to get down the stairs and to the dorms. The door was heavy and muffled the sound of the dinning hall as it closed, drawing Dimitri’s attention. The moon wasn’t full like it was when they’d come here together a week or so back, abusing their house leader power to sneak out to the dock, pointing out constellations and sharing stories. Yet Dimitri still looked stunning, stealing what light was offered and shining it as his own. Standing against the night sky, dressed in blacks and blues and hard lines, he could’ve been carved out of marble, the figure of a saint history had somehow missed for how naturally Dimitri would’ve been in place with the statues of the cathedral.

“I didn’t get you into the habit of sneaking out, have I?” Claude said, joining Dimitri near the railing. Claude hopped up and sat on the stone edge, working as both a look out for the door and to face Dimitri who looked so handsome in the moonlight that it was unfair. Dimitri leaned a hand on the stone near Claude’s hip.

“You might fall if you sit like that.” Dimitri said, raising a hand to hover above Claude’s waist. Claude debated pretending to slip just to get Dimitri to catch him.

“I’ll take my chances. And you still haven’t answered my question. Not one for festivities, Your Majesty? Or are you just a sore loser.” Claude asked, bludgeoning ideas of crafty contact out of his mind. He swung his feet before crossing one ankle over the other, hoping to cover his nervous energy with a playful air.

“It’s not that.” Dimitri shook his head, glancing back off to the lake. Dimitri’s hands returned to his side, not wanting them to wander too close to the one he adored. “Though I’m delighted to see everyone enjoying themselves, the company of so many other people grows overwhelming. I needed to clear my head. My thoughts have been… wandering.” Dimitri said, accessing Claude from the corner of his eye.

“Really? We barely got started, haven’t even heard a single ‘chug, chug, chug’ chant yet.” Claude jokes, a puff of amusement from Dimitri being his reward. If this was a chance to glimpse at the darkness that brewed behind Dimitri’s rigid composure, he couldn’t go about this demandingly. He worried, of course he worried, Dimitri was his friend, but being too open with that concern might make Dimitri balk and close up.

“Now wouldn’t that be something,” Dimitri commented off handedly. “No, I suppose it’s not the fault of the crowd, though it certainly didn’t help.”

“Then what’s up? Lay it on me, big guy.” Claude said, leaning toward him. Dimitri didn’t meet his eyes, lips pursed and pensive, mulling over whatever thoughts had brought him to leave the feast so soon. There was much to Dimitri’s past that haunted him, it was hard not to worry.

“Claude…” he said apprehensively. Dimitri’s fingers curled on the stone railing. “I apologize. I’ve drawn your concern when you’re the last person who deserves to be troubled by me.”

Claude frowned. “And that’s supposed to mean what exactly?”

“You come to me as a friend, and I have grown so fond of your company that my heart has turned selfish.” Dimitri said, still not meeting Claude’s eyes. Which was probably a good thing, because Claude was looking at him with such scepticism that it probably would’ve chased Dimitri off. “You seek me out and allow me your time, you offer me your friendship, your understanding, your comfort, your dreams.” and he knew how important those dreams were to Claude, and yet… “and yet in the moment of your victory, one which was important enough to confide your worries of it with me, I’d nearly forgotten myself,”

Oh. Here it was. So Dimitri really was a sore loser after all? He thought Dimitri seemed off when he’d helped him to his feet at the end of the battle, but part of him was hoping that had just been adrenaline. He had confided in Dimitri about the battle over a shared meal, and while Dimitri was one to be understanding, a person couldn’t always control what they got upset over. Disappointing but not surprising, Dimitri was only human after all.

“I was so overwhelmed by the sight of you in the dawn of your victory, I’d nearly let myself carry through on an… impulse.” Dimitri further explained, finally looking up at him with an apology heavy in his throat.

Did Dimitri want to punch him? Now that was something to fear, direct contact with Dimitri’s strength could’ve ended his life entirely-

“I wanted to kiss you.” 

_Oh._ Claude must’ve looked as shocked as he felt, guilt weighed Dimitri’s brow and Claude kicked himself for being so caught up in worries of alienation that it slipped past his carefully controlled exterior. Dimitri tore away from the railing, taking a half step back, giving Claude space to process. Something small and left to be forgotten swelled in Claude’s chest, Dimitri’s admission slipping past his defenses and settling at the roots of a boy who long thought himself unlovable. It scared Claude, the way it grew past the bars and undid old locks, warming his chest, his face, his ears. It scared him for how nice it felt. How easily he could find himself risking so much for that feeling.

“We were in front of so many people, many of which you’ve told me are people you need to be careful around, and in front of our classmates whose respect we need to curate as leaders.” Dimitri continued as if in a confessional, as if Claude’s forgiveness was something he had to seek out. “And I nearly ruined your image. After the accusations we faced from Edelgard, it would’ve been the worst time to be overrun by my desire, and yet I thought to myself-“

“Dimitri.”

“No, what I thought wasn't important. Here I am, trivializing your boundaries with talks of politics, I can’t assume you would want such intimate contact, and yet to think so shamefully, especially as someone you trust-”

" _Dimitri."_ Claude clapped his hands in front of Dimitri’s face, startling him out of his profession. “Slow down there, alright, buddy?” He grabbed the hem of Dimitri’s cape as it fluttered closer from the wind, pulling Dimitri back to him, who followed the motion without resistance. Claude wondered if he looked as red as he felt. “You are by far the most oblivious person I have ever known. You’re right, it would be a pain to deal with all the rumors if you’d laid one on me in front of half of Fodlan.” Dimitri opened his mouth, likely to apologize, Claude covered his lips with a finger. “But, if you take a look around, we’re the only ones here right now. No nobles other than this pretty thing right in front of you. And I never said I would be opposed to the idea- did I miss something? See, as far as I’m aware, you never asked.” Claude watched as realization clicked in place, Dimitri taking his hand and lowering it from his mouth. 

This is ridiculous. This is absolutely ridiculous and everything about this shouldn’t be as romantic as it was, but here they were, and here Claude was, head over heels like a complete sucker and has been for some time. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment his feelings for Dimitri turned into something more complex, something that squeezed his heart and strung up his worries tighter and made the world feel brighter with every shared moment. He had been feeling this and refusing to act on what he thought was a one-sided longing, so if this moment was when he found out Dimitri felt the same, then so what if they were being ridiculous. 

“Can I kiss you?” Dimitri asked. 

He never wanted to kiss someone so bad. 

Claude didn’t bother speaking his answer. He gave his approval in the fingers through Dimitri’s hair, drawing him close and finally pressing their lips together. Dimitri was expectedly rigid but kissed with his full heart behind it. His hair was smooth between Claude’s fingers and his hand slid down to touch his arm, wanting to be met with Dimitri’s warmth instead of the cold press of metal. He kissed Dimitri wantingly but not for long, unsure what’s to do with the literal stiff upper lip he was being met with here. Yet it sparked in his heart and made his finger tips feel electric and was perfect as long as he got to feel Dimitri there, as close as he wanted. The warmth of his cheeks and the touch that had occupied his thoughts so much. 

He wondered if this was Dimitri’s first kiss. It could go either way, as far as Claude knew, incredibly charming and easy on the eyes but just as dedicated and single minded, if he had made the time to think of romance and intimacy, he was sure it would come easy for Dimitri- he just doubted Dimitri gave that effort. And that could explain why he was so fixed to the spot as Claude kissed him. 

Claude readied his best smirk, trying to dispel the flutters in his chest with a few teasing words on Dimitri’s inexperience.

It was as Claude pulled away that Dimitri snapped out of his spell. Claude had proven his restraints unnecessary and so Dimitri discarded them, wanting to take him over like a flood took the land. 

Dimitri was on him so suddenly that if it weren’t for his squeeze of Claude’s waist, he would’ve felt in danger of falling back. He clutched Dimitri instinctively, gasping as he was rushed with the burst of desire. He was so close so suddenly, placing himself between Claude’s legs, pulling him in as he titled on the edge of the railing. If it were anyone else, he would’ve feared falling. But this was Dimitri, whose arms locked around him and whose hands were so sure and whose lips pressed into his possessively. Claude melted into him, how could he do anything but, how did he live in a world right before this very moment, before Dimitri. His heart filled and poured over, Claude closed his eyes and held tight, worried it would disappear like the dreams he had of Dimitri, scared he’d wake up and the ache in his heart would be for nothing, that the days victory, the acceptance, the joy would all be just another dream he had to chase. Claude knew one day his heart would be broken just by the memory this would become. The joy that Dimitri swept him off his feet and held him to the sky he pinned a new wish to every night. 

Claude found his breath on Dimitri’s lips. There was no turning back after this, there was no pretending their quiet moments together were just friendly get togethers, nothing he could deny to Dimitri, nothing he could deny to himself. It was so real it was frightening, it was exhilarating. Dimitri took Claude in, eyes wide and pupils blown, flickering over his face as if he, too, couldn’t believe this was real. Dimitri sighed shakily, a light huff over Claude’s sensitive lips. 

Claude was still catching his breath, reaccessing his assumption that Dimitri was inexperienced, and Dimitri still wanted more. His head dropped to the side, pressing a needy kiss to Claude’s jaw, a trail of them down his neck, his tongue dipped across Claude’s collarbone to Claude’s utter surprise. He didn’t think Dimitri had this in him.

Not that he was complaining.

One hand kept Claude pulled against him at the small of his waist, Dimitri finding that Claude was a lot slimmer under the flowing clothes he wore, confirming the findings his sleep deprived mind had given him once those weeks ago. It made him easier to hold close. His other hand trailed down to Claude’s hip, then his thigh, fingers pressing into the soft flesh under his thigh and lifting Claude clear off the railing with no effort. 

“H-hey, big guy, your hands are wandering,” Claude spoke in a breathy laugh, hand fisting in Dimitri’s hair. Dimitri pressed an open mouth kiss, sucking a mark into Claude’s neck. He felt Claude’s pulse on his teeth. He felt the stutter of Claude’s breathing and wanted to mark his presence there. Dimitri bit down when Claude shivered.

_"Dimitri-"_ He gasped.

Bonk. 

A white boot made contact with Dimitri’s shoulder, inches from Claude’s head where it had intended to land.

Hilda threw her shoe at them. It bounced off Dimitri and fell down the steep drop from behind the railing. Claude jumped, legs locking around Dimitri’s waist and holding on, Dimitri ripped away to face their interruption, one arm wrapping around Claude’s to steady him and the other going to grab the sword at his hip, ready to fight at the moment's notice. Of course it was unnecessary, and the only thing to face was their well deserved scrutiny. 

“What are you doing??” She spat in a whisper that wasn’t really a whisper, but was all she could do to not yell at them. Hilda quickly checked behind her to make sure nobody else was looking. Dedue stood at the door, his back to it to keep anyone from walking out to the sight. His eyes were closed, brow twitching as to avert his gaze from what his charge had been doing. “Right here?? Literally, _right here?_ Most of the school is through that door! Do you know how careless you’re being!” She swatted Dimitri’s arm and gave Claude a swift bonk to the head. 

“Ow.” 

" _Is that all you have to say-_ drop him, Dimitri, drop him,” Hilda shook Claude, trying to pry him off of Dimitri. Hilda was startlingly strong for how small she was, and as to not aid in dislocating Claude’s arm, he was put down, lowered until his feet touched the ground and not dropped, because Dimitri was a gentleman. Hilda shook him by the shoulders. “Have you totally lost it! What happened to being mister sneaky, one hickey and that goes out the window?

“ _Hickey?"_ Claude slapped a hand over his neck. “Do I have a hickey?” He pointed at Dimitri, “Did you give me a hickey?”

“I…” Dimitri was at a loss of words. Dedue approached once the distance between Claude and Dimitri was more appropriate and the door no longer needed to be blocked.

“Your Highness…” Dedue said stiffly. “I’m happy for you but please, consider the improper setting.”

“Y-you’re right, Dedue, this was highly inappropriate, I hadn’t meant to, I mean,” Dimitri cleared his throat. “I _meant_ to, but,” Dedue could only look so awkward before Hilda took over for the scolding.

“Step aside, Dedue, you might not give him an earful but I _will_.”

* * *

The assassin watched the boot drop off the side of the ledge, hugging the shadows tighter as to not be noticed. When the assassin had gotten this assignment, paid handsomely by some Alliance noble too cowardice to handle bloodshed by himself, he hadn’t expected the target. Assassins dealt in higher rings, almost nothing surprised him now. But this was an exception, for it was not the first time he was sent to kill Prince Khalid. Now he paraded around as a leader of part of this monastery’s academy, someone so easy to follow back in all the excitement of the play battle.

Prince Khalid. Someone who had escaped his blade before as a mere child, chasing the assassin out of the country and into the land of cowards and odd magic. What should have been an easy kill had ruined his reputation and severed him from his thieves guild, and now that same bothersome child was here.

He watched the vanished prince, now 18 years old, many years from their first encounter. He sat in the embrace of the prince of Almyra’s neighboring continent and behind the protection of allied politicians. Strong ones. The assassin could not strike now.

He didn’t believe in things like fate, not like those of Fodlan did. The assassin considered it something these people used to shield them from their own unwillingness to act, but this? He’d have to send thanks to this Sothis Goddess as he brought Khalid’s head back to the cowardly old man Gloucester, and then to the eldest prince of Almyra. 


	5. Hunted by the past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love is kind but the world is not. Love is kind but the past is not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Just wanted to start by saying I went back and edited some of the previous chapters, nothing major, just some continuity errors or lines I didn't like looking back. I'm still learning as I go since I haven't been this dedicated to writing in years, so I got rust I'm shaking off. I hope you like it! All the comments really keep me motivated to write, so thank you.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS!! PROCEED WITH CAUTION IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO THE FOLLOWING:  
> poisoning, assassination attempt, blood, knives, graphic violence

The excitement following the Battle of the Eagle and Lion had died down in about a week. After receiving news of Remire village, it was sufficiently smoked out. 

It was odd, watching Byleth show concern as they did. While that village hadn’t been a pleasant experience, it was where Claude had met the teacher he came to rely on, an important string in the net of fate. The unease had balanced the scale and knocked the monastery right back to normal. As normal as it could be with the looming monthly mission, that is, but after so much time that too felt normal. Spend so long in a pattern and a person could get used to anything.

Him and Dimitri- now that was new. It was new and it was fun. They had already spent so much time together, that the only thing that had changed was the hesitation between the two of them, leaning into the tension that everybody but them seemed to see coming. As it had turned out, Dimitri was a romantic and took to it easily. He would hold Claude’s hand when given the chance, share brief passing kissing when they felt there was no threat of onlookers, and affection flowed out of him like an open tap. He would bring flowers from the greenhouse and credit Dedue for the recommendation, sitting in a quiet corner of the library late at night.

Dimitri shared what Ashe had told him about flower language and meaning, then Claude would pluck one out of the humble bouquet and tell Dimitri how easily it could be reduced down into a poison. 

The bewildered face Dimitri made as he recoiled from breathing in the fragrance of an oleander had sparked a bout of laughter in Claude so sudden and robust that a monk had thrown her hat at them. She sternly reminded them the world expanded beyond him and Dimitri, (something that became easier to forget the more time they spent together.) Dimitri returned her hat with a bow of his head and a soft apology as Claude stayed behind, laughing silently behind a cup of chamomile tea.

When he came back with a warning, Claude was left to tease Dimitri with snickers of laughter and shaking shoulders. Dimitri’s blush was warm against Claude’s lips, a kiss to his cheek working in place of a verbal apology- Claude couldn’t get one out without laughing. Dimitri began plucking the offending flower out of the bouquet as carefully as he could without ruining the entire arrangement. Claude decided to keep quiet about the poisonous nature of the morning glorys still occupying the bunch. 

“Are you gonna start chewing on those like you did the courtyard weeds?” Claude asked, tucking a morning glory behind Dimitri’s ear as he fussed over the bundle of flowers. Claude had the urge to decorate Dimitri with all the flowers he was holding, something to compliment his adoring blush and lighten up the mournful clothing Faerghus had been so known for. 

“Wha- That is a _rumor_ and you know it.” Dimitri balked, reaching for the flower behind his ear, tucking it back securely. 

“I do. But I’ll keep poking at you for it anyway.”

Claude had kept the oleanders anyway, carefully pressing the flower between pages of books to preserve it. Flowers wilted too quickly. The white petals reminded him of his wyvern back home. The creases in the stems reminded him of Dimitri rushing to gather them, as if their continued presence in Claude’s hands was a threat unto his well being. Ridiculous.

Those were the sweeter moments. The world that waited outside them remained unkind and demanding. They each had duties to attend to and roles to fill, for their tasks at the Academy and as up and coming central figures for Fodlan politics. And in return, he got to be there for Dimitri as the church called for another pound of his flesh.

While Remire village sat in Empire territory, it bordered too close to the Kingdom to go without concern. Word of Remire spread slowly due to the church spreading its people thin, allocating a meek amount of support to a village caught in distress. No, the church had prioritized manpower to punish the Western Church, something it could barely afford when it had already invested efforts to research the attack during the Goddess' Rite of Rebirth. Then there came Miklan’s bandits, who still tore through areas of the Kingdom and grew too close to the monastery for comfort. 

And despite all the boasting of Fodlan Nobility for their religious dedication, it was only the Kingdom which offered the church aid. It was the 

Kingdom of Faerghus for a reason, huh…

The Church considered Faerghus’s resources to be its own, yet never returned the kindness. Instead lording its aid over the head of the prince as if Dimitri were further indebting himself.

Dimitri’s misgivings with the church were only spoken to Claude in late night murmurs, when he cradled Dimitri’s head in his lap. Concern and curiosity both stirred Claude on, coaxing Dimitri’s worries from him after finding him hunched over his desk, struggling to write his eulogies to Lord Lonato, unable to look Ashe in the eye after his class was sent to kill his adopted father.

“No one is expecting this of me.” Dimitri had said when Claude asked who he was answering to, and so long after Lonato’s death. “No one has asked me to answer for his death. Not even Ashe, who witnessed me strike him down. And surely the Archbishop would demand the reevaluation of my faith if she were to discover that I mourn him still. In truth, this is incredibly selfish. Yet, I cannot stop thinking… They didn’t need to die. No one needed to die. Something could have been done, and all those people could still be alive.” 

Dimitri bore guilt that the church refused to, trying to reconcile his regrets in unsent letters. Dozens sat folded in a bottom drawer, Claude’s curiosity had led him to the stack after Dimitri fell into much needed sleep. He could only manage to skim through some before shame for invading such an intimate part of Dimitri’s grief settled in. While most were not for distress in the Archbishops' decisions, Claude’s quiet resentment of the church only grew deeper.

But Dimitri still did what he could with what he had. Merchants who barely escaped the corroding village were not shy when asked what they saw by Duke Fraldarius, who then got word back to Dimitri. As the mission to Remire grew closer, both of them grew more dedicated in their preparations. Even still, they would make time for each other late at night. Away from prying eyes and the church’s taxation on Dimitri’s continued existence. 

As for Claude himself?

Well. He wasn’t just sitting on his hands waiting for the next big thing to happen. No, there was still too much to figure out and every answer only led to more questions, making Claude feel as spread thin as the church’s net of shiny knights.

For one, he didn’t trust Monica. A girl who was missing for over a year and suddenly turns up, with no word to her affluent family and no desire to go back? Not even to summon Monica and make sure a stranger wasn’t impersonating their long missing daughter? The Black Eagles were a class made up almost exclusively of nobility, the only exception being Dorothea, and even she barely made it in as the Adrestian Empire’s most revered opera singer. Attendance at Garreg Mach’s Officers Academy was far from involuntary or automatic, but those that came were so expected to as a rite of passage for nobility, it must’ve been easy to overlook for other students. Not for Claude, who knew how hard it was to go missing when you wanted to.

Whenever Claude tried to get a word from Monica, Edelgard was at her side without fail. Her reasoning had been that Monica felt safer that way. 

Claude commented on the fact it wasn’t like her to be a babysitter, and that she easily could send Monica back home with a wealth of personal protection. 

Edelgard said it wasn’t his place to pry, Claude himself had also shown up out of nowhere, and if Monica had to answer for it, then he should lead by example. Every conversation ended like that, in a curt standstill with Monica looking unceasingly amused. 

Even Tomas, the old little librarian would vouch for her, saying she would come by to catch up on studies and stayed almost as late as Claude did, but Claude just wrote that off as grandpa instinct. It wasn’t his place to worry about these things anyway.

“She would find your notes very helpful. It would be good if you tried to get along with her.” Tomas had once encouraged him.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll think about it.” Claude had dismissed. He thought about how bad of an idea it was. If Dimitri was worried about unsent letters to the dead being sniffed out by the Archbishop, Claude was worried about his, let's say, speculative religious history notes being found. The way he sometimes spoke about the Goddess would probably get him beheaded or something equally as crazy, and he never wrote much more than reasonable criticism. Claude saw the cracks in Lady Rhea’s mask and wasn’t eager to go poking around them.

Not yet. That was a task for future Claude.

Present Claude had a full plate. Monica was the least concerning part of what had happened when the Death Knight kidnapped Flayn, but was the only one who was certain to possess some kind of knowledge. She was a horrible liar, that much was clear. Always too smug.

There was also the matter of that armored mask figure spotted with the Death Knight. Claude regretted not going into the catacombs if only for the fact he had missed the encounter with that mysterious and obviously dangerous individual, one who had authority over the Death Knight of all people. Ignatz had drawn out what he remembered of their encounter, complying what he saw along with the accounts of others. 

He’d called himself the Flame Emperor, he promised to burn the world to the ground, and _that_ just wouldn’t do. If the Death Knight had been walking amongst them since the beginning, did that mean the Flame Emperor could be as well?

He looked like a bird wearing curtains, Claude thought, projecting his annoyance on to the Death Knights’ boss. Someone get their parrot before it abducts any more people.

And all those notes were hidden in a compartment under his bed, a little hatch that clicked seamlessly into place with the rest of the frame. So maybe there were a few more perks than just a nicer mattress, perks that came in handy because Claude had the suspicion someone had snuck into his room. It was a small shift, one that could easily be overlooked by someone with less to keep track of or without as keen an eye. Everything was placed back where it had originally been, but the open book on his desk read a new page, and the knife kept under his pillow had been turned over. 

Claude slept in Dimitri’s room the week following.

Maybe that was his first mistake. He got too comfortable. He felt too safe. Dimitri made him feel safe and that made him reckless. 

Dimitri had told him earlier that day, (between brief stolen kisses in a meeting room, where they stayed behind after a house leaders meeting,) about information he would be getting from Rodrigue about Remire village later that night, but that he still fully intended to make it to their little library date. He had agreed to wait for Dimitri at the library after he told Claude he would be late for he was meeting an informant Duke Fraldarius sent, one who had to return before the morning storm so as to not risk losing their fastest pegasus rider. Claude kissed him back and said he’d be waiting with a pot of tea, feeling bizarrely domestic. This thing with Dimitri took less getting used to than he had expected. 

His plan for the time before Dimitri showed up was to be as inconspicuously productive as possible. By this time, all the people who could know of Claude’s frequent visits would know there was no discouraging his curiosity- including Seteth, who had laxed his suspicions of Claude since his victory at the Battle of Eagle and Lion. (Claude had a hunch Byleth might’ve given him a hard time about it, but he could dream that his reputation was making repairs.) He kept the drawing of the Flame Emperor carefully tucked away in his breast pocket and a book of blank pages under his arm, along with a carefully wrapped charcoal pencil.

He carried a teapot with one cup hanging off its stout up to the library as well, switching from coffee to chamomile as these long nights became more frequent. There had to be books related to cultural designs and clothing, right? It was a far stretch but maybe if he found a few textile history books, it could give him- something. Anything. Those books would be too boring for Seteth to toss and Fodlan’s love of fashionable symbolism could narrow down where this Flame Emperor came from.

Claude walked through the empty library thankful that his research could be done without suspicious glances, too wrapped up in the mysteries unfolding to notice how odd it was to be completely alone, even at this hour. There were mages who studied at night as part of their practice into dark magic, and even Tomas who practically lived there was nowhere to be seen.

Too secluded, too silent, and by the time Claude noticed that his tea was too sweet to be chamomile alone, he was already feeling the effects of the poison.

At first Claude thought it was his lacking artistic skills that made the emblem he was copying down so skewed. The charcoal crumbled against the paper as his usual feather light touch became a jagged sweep. Claude thought he had been holding the paper down, making sure it hadn’t moved while he attempted to draw the emblem for the fourth time in his haze of irritated confusion. That too had been a blunder, and the paper swept clear across the table with his frustrated stroke, taking Claude with it. His forehead slammed on the table with a thud, the sound of a teacup skittering then shattering to the floor. The world seemed to ripple like a stone dropped in water, dizzy when the surface wasn’t settling. Claude didn’t lift his head immediately, feeling if he did then he would go toppling right out of the chair. 

Panic rose with the vertigo. The world titled around him, eyes closed and head pressed to the table doing nothing to orient him. He felt caught in a tide, unsure which direction to go but knowing staying still was worse. His breath caught in shallow, frantic bursts. Claude had been poisoned. He forced his head up, pushing off the table with shaking hands.

The spilled poison mirrored the reflection of Claude’s dilated pupils, riddled with fear and confusion, and the assassin who approached behind him. Slow, methodical, and familiar.

“It’s been some time, Prince Khalid.” A mismatched pair of eyes looked coldly down at its victim. Adrenaline shot through him, helping Claude skirt the imbalancing effects of the poison. Claude went to run, a hand clenched on the back of the chair- it was swiftly kicked out from under him, sending him toppling down to the floor. He crawled back, ignoring pieces of shattered porcelain that embedded into the heels of his hands, muddying poisoned tea with blood.

“You…” Claude grimaced. “How, how are you alive, how did you find me?” His eyes could barely focus on the assassin right in front of him. This was bad. This was really bad.

“No matter how far you run, you cause trouble. People want their problems fixed, and you’ve been nothing but a problem since the day you were birthed from your father’s Fodlan whore.” The assassin was taking his time to taunt Claude, something he hadn’t done in his first attempt on Claude’s life. It hadn’t been personal then. Now he was relishing the pathetic way Claude shrunk back in his last moments of life. “I think your brothers would be amused to hear how much you take after her. Running off to a foreign land, bedding what is to be a king, getting in everyone's way... You belong with the cowards of this country.” The assassin took out a long, thin rapier, twirling it in the fashion of Fodlan’s swordsmanship. Different from the weapon used on his first attempt on Claude’s life. “Maybe if you learned anything from your life in Almyra, you’d be allowed to live.”

The mockery stung, anger sunk in place of fear, a fire bursting to life under the fuel of adrenaline. His mind became sharp with the memory of Almyra and what he had learned in all of life’s attempts to beat him down.

How to survive.

“Well, you know me,” Claude retorted with a shaky, hollow laugh. “Can’t keep a good man down-” A abrupt hacking cut Claude off from his last words, violent coughing turned into retching. He hunched over with his back to the assassin as his body convulsed, desperate to expel the poison, clutching his chest as its spasms became too painful to ignore. 

“You are just as pathetic in death as you were in life, Khalid.” He raised the rapier over Claude’s body, the fine tip of the blade aimed for his heart.

The assassin was so caught up enjoying Claude’s suffering that he hadn’t noticed the coughing fit had been fake. 

Claude grabbed the dagger hidden against his waist. He relied on experience, luck and adrenaline to carry through where the poison had muddied his senses. Using his strike as a guiding point to turn back over, stabbing into the forearm of the assassin as he was stabbing down, the force turned against him as he sliced himself open on Claude’s dagger. The tip of the dagger tore through to the other side of the assassin’s forearm, his rapier clattered as nerves severed, blood pouring and discoloring the brighter parts of Claude’s clothes.

The crest of Riegan illuminated within him, scattering the effects of poison that had made Claude unable to stand. He didn’t waste a moment of clarity. 

He tore the dagger back and kicked the assassin in the chest with strength Claude had lacked at their first encounter, for now he was no longer a scared child. He sent the assassin flying back, hopping to his feet where his would be killer had just been standing. 

“You chose a real stupid place to try and kill me. The Archbishop sleeps right upstairs and she’s guarded to the teeth.” Claude huffed. He took the rapier for himself. He ran to the heavy library door, sure if he called for help in the echoing stone halls then someone would hear. His eyes focused and his breath came easy, feet catching on the wind as he slammed into the door to open it.

But it didn’t budge. A heavy lock chained the door in place, something set up by the assassin as a precaution, something Claude somehow hadn’t noticed being set up as the poison had dulled his senses. 

“Damn it!” He hissed, rattling the door. His mind spun ideas frantically.

He could pick the lock if he had time before the assassin launched his next attack. He could take a key from the assassin if he had time to kill him before the poison started setting in again. He could climb out a window if he had time to reach the ground before his grip gave way to certain death.

He didn’t have time. A knife embedded itself into the door next to him, the assassin on his feet with a crude tourniquet around his arm to slow bleeding. Claude had taken out his dominant hand, saving him from steel to the spine.

“This is hardly a fair fight.” Claude said, raising his dagger as he sunk into a fighting stance. “How about you open this door and we call it even.” He slowly moved away from it, circling the approaching assassin with careful steps so he didn’t get cornered to the door. 

If Claude had gotten stronger over the years then so had the assassin, fighting through the blood loss and equipping knives from his side, throwing them at Claude with all the accuracy and intent to kill that had haunted his dreams. 

“Worth a shot.” Claude muttered, volting himself off a table to get behind a bookshelf, the spines of books suffering the blow in his place. He expected to hear the stomping of feet, was trained to listen for that sort of thing, but this assassin worked in silence. His blood chilled, remembering how still the air had been on that day. Claude was up against someone who fought similarly to himself, except this one had his ranged weapon where he did not. The assassin was injured where Claude was poisoned, and if his crest were to do him any good, if it were to get to the poison before the poison got to him, he had to keep fighting. 

Claude held his breath and listened, willing the blur to his thoughts to stay back, focusing on where the assassin could be, why he hadn’t heard the creek of floorboards or the squeak of blood under boots-

A shelf strained on the other side of the bookshelf. Claude looked up. He ducked as the blade aimed for his head, spinning on his heel to deliver a kick to the assassin as he landed beside him. 

The world became a blur of swift strikes and metal, the close quarters knife fight sending sparks flying from clashes of metal. The throwing knives bent under the steel of Claude’s dagger, light but not durable. The rapier wasn’t good for much in Claude’s hand but it was great for deflecting. 

He was pushed out from his hiding space, the assassin startling Claude as he elbowed him in the chest with his bad arm, making Claude hit his back on the stair railing and drop the rapier that had been serving as a clumsy attempt at dual wielding. 

In a desperate show of combatant acrobatics, Claude flipped himself back over the railing, his tunic being pinned to the wooden handle by the rapier in place of his flesh. He ripped the tunic off his chest, cutting through it with his dagger and throwing the excess fabric over the assassins head. He couldn’t bend his fingers, couldn’t yank off the fabric in one go.

Blood rushed from his head, thoughts pinpointing as the opportunity stared Claude down. This was his chance.

He tried to stab the blinded assassin in the neck, or the chest, or torso or shoulder- he missed the mark by inches along with his clean shot to kill the assassin. He tried again, and missed, being met with a punch to the face once the assassin tore the cloth away. His coordination had failed him.

The poison was setting back in, his pounding heart had sped up the process. 

Claude ran up the stairs, the assassin following him over the railing and up to the half floor of the library where Claude made his retreat. His foot caught on the step, sending him on his hands against the stairs. A sweeping kick back assured he hadn’t missed the blow to the assassin behind him, sending the killer falling back down the stairs. Claude hurried to the rise, hoping to find a weapon or a window or something, maybe he could drop a bookshelf on him, if his eyes could focus he could jump down to the first floor and roll out without injury-

“It ends here, little prince.” The assassin said, gripping the edge of a shelf to keep himself up. Claude wasn’t the only one in a bad way. The gash in his assailant's arm wasn’t a small thing, and a heavy trail of blood had been coating the library everywhere their fight migrated.

“You’ll die here, too.” Claude said, brandishing his dagger in defiance of his fear. “You’re bleeding out. There’s no way you’ll survive that if you don’t give up the chase.” He spat, backing up slowly as the assassin stalked forward.

“I don’t care. If I die here, I’ll make sure you die first. The humiliation of your survival drove me out of Almyra, and I will die to repay that suffering.” Fingers ashened by blood loss clutched the rapier, not stalling his advance on Claude. 

He backed up further, until there was nowhere else to go. Until his back met the railing of the library’s half floor, until his world became a tilt of confusion once again. It couldn’t end like this. He had so much planned, he had so much to prove, so much to do. His wyvern waited for him back in Almyra, the threats looming over Fodlan would go unanswered, his dreams of fruitful diplomacy sat just beyond the dawn, a new day Claude wouldn’t get to see. 

And Dimitri. Dimitri would be the one to find his body. Claude would be another unsent letter to the dead. Dimitri who held each life he came across close in his memories, who knew how the loss of someone could echo out forever in another’s life, who had been the first person to hear even a page of Claude’s dreams and promised Claude he wouldn’t be alone in that world he was working so hard for. Dimitri who read Claude for his actions, his intentions, who lowered the mask of a flippant uncaring noble and adored the face of the hopeful dreamer below, who was coming so close to love that Claude almost wasn’t afraid of loving-

“CLAUDE!” Was that him? Was that Dimitri? Or had the poison, the one that blacked his vision and sent Claude falling back over the railing to the ground below- taken pity on Claude in his last moments, and offered him the voice of someone dear to him as the last thing he heard. 

Falling felt like flying when darkness came before the ground.

* * *

Everyone knew Claude was a secretive person. But Dimitri hadn’t minded that, not after getting to know the man behind all the misleading words. Claude was not one to keep secrets out of malice, but in self defense, something Dimitri learned on his own during his time at the Academy, observing Claude from a distance and then up close and personal. His impression of the Golden Deer’s leader shifting during their first month there. He had found Claude caring for the stray cats that found home in the monastery, after saying he had no interest in them an hour before, when Dimitri stopped his stable chores and training early to allow a cat to sleep without interruption on the backs of one of the steeds. 

He had called Dimitri a sap. Trying to find his irritation by teasing him, saying that the Kingdom had come to a grinding halt at the obstruction of a single cat. Dimitri had given him no kind look when Claude had moved the cat from its resting place, dropping it outside the stable.

He had come back an hour later, having forgotten to return the stables buckets, to find Claude with small cut up pieces of fish and the same tabby from before. 

“I know Marianne told you to keep off the horses. The nobles around here aren’t as nice as me and they can get really territorial when it comes to their horses. Look, I get it, they’re warm and don’t fuss about your claws, but you won’t be landing on your feet so easily if you fall off mid-nap. Not with this,” he had poked the cats side and returned his hand with a fresh scratch clawed across it. “Gah, okay, that’s fair enough. No need to go mama bear on me, they’re not even born yet.”

Dimitri had left before Claude could notice him. He stopped taking Claude’s taunts seriously after that and kept knowledge of that adorable moment to himself, allowing Claude to feign surprise at the presence of orange spotted kittens when their stable chores had again overlapped. 

It was a small gesture, and likely insignificant in alluding to his character in the grander scheme of things, but it stuck with Dimitri, who allowed himself to think Claude was kinder than he wanted others to believe.

He watched Claude, noting his actions, his plans, the way he led and watched over those of his class, waiting to be disproven. He never was. Frivolous words and careless smiles never matched the quiet determination in Claude’s eyes, a carefree facade to mask that which he cared for deeply. An admiration of Claude had fostered then, one he hadn’t expected to grow the way it had.

If Claude had his secrets, Dimitri would not force them from him. Everyone had things they wanted to protect and different strengths to use in protecting them, if that was how Claude chose to defend then Dimitri could not judge him.

“I can’t believe you don’t lock your door at night.” Claude had once said, pulling himself from Dimitri’s arms to go lock the door. 

“I’ve never felt the need to. I’m an exceptionally light sleeper.” Dimitri said, sitting himself up.

“You can never be too careful. This whole dorm hall is an assassin's wet dream. You got precious cargo in here, you gotta keep it on lock.” Claude said with a wink, as if that dismissed how restless Claude had been ever since he noticed the door hadn’t been locked, or how he seemed to speak from experience. Dimitri decided not to comment on the dagger he had found under Claude’s pillow the next night together.

Dimitri had originally thought Claude had opted out of keeping a blade on his person, despite it being a part of the house leader uniform. He didn’t say anything when he learned that a dagger sat against Claude’s waist, under the flowing fabric of his tunic. 

“Lots of archers are ambidextrous.” Claude had once explained when Dimitri noted his ambidextrous nature, how he could switch between writing with his right and left hand for personal letters and notes. “It makes my hand writing harder to forge, that’s a little bonus. Someone once impersonated my tutor in a letter to try and lure me out and pick me off, so it's important to cover all my bases.” There was more to Claude’s words than he was willing to share, more worry than he would let into his voice. It was too odd to be a typical joke, too out of place, assuming that experience to be a norm. It was more careless than he typically was, usually so cagey about his past and his reason for things. If Claude had been a commoner before arriving at the Alliance, why would he have had a tutor worth impersonating? To form an entire closely maintained practice around one experience meant it was more than just a footnote. Dimitri knew those forced calms too well. But he kept it to himself. 

Ultimately, Dimitri decided to have faith in Claude since Claude had trusted him enough with those glimpses of himself, and not go cornering Claude for his closely kept fears. 

He would hold Claude close until he fell asleep during those moments of high anxiety, wanting Claude to feel the safety he so sparsely did. He slept closer to the door and kept the sword of his uniform propped against the bed frame for easy reach, he even complimented Claude’s hidden dagger of choice, not wanting Claude to feel embarrassed over wanting security. 

Never questioning it but not allowing it to leave his mind. How could he ever let himself forget? Now he would experience one of Claude’s nightmares for himself. 

When Dimitri found the letter on his desk, a peak of Claude’s penmanship from the folded paper, a sense of nameless unease settled on his neck. He wasted no time on reading the letter, knowing he had kept Claude waiting long enough with his debriefing with the pegasus knight. 

The letter, in Claude’s hand, told him to turn in for the night, that he had waited too long, that he would see Dimitri in the morning. Some off hand words about chamomile tea, and breakfast, and none of it should have been alarming as it was. 

And then, at the bottom right corner, was signed, ‘Khalid’. Whoever wrote it knew every detail but Claude’s name, and wanted Dimitri away from the library where Claude waited, in danger of the deadly intentions behind the false letter.

The cold returned. The fingers clutching the imposter's note went numb from frostbite, a draft passed Dimitri’s ear, the ghostly melody of disappointment.

He crushed the forgery in his hand, leaping from the spot before the ice could enclose Dimitri in shock. 

He sprinted past the dorms, alarming those in the hall with his break of composure. He shoved someone aside- likely Sylvain but he wasted no time in checking- and when shouted down for slamming his classmate against a wall, he could only respond in a shout of justification, of warning, of plea,

“Claude’s in trouble!” With that, the hall disappeared behind him, and his dead sprint of the library went underway.

The frantic prince drew in the attention of surrounding students and guards, alarmed looks and calls to halt went completely ignored. Some guards dropped what they were doing after a moment of stunned confusion to take off after him, some with him, all unable to catch up with Dimitri. 

One heavily armored guard, bless their foolish heart, tried to stop Dimitri as he closed in on the stairs leading up to the library. 

“Out of my way!” Dimitri yelled, and when they hadn’t moved, when they began to raise their shield to stop Dimitri’s ascent, the arm that tried to brace against the prince was shattered when he grabbed it. With the heavy dent of metal and no regard to well being, Dimitri threw them clear across the hall. They never stood a chance.

A clambering of footsteps was heard at the echoes of the steps as Dimitri left them, whoever followed after him only ever able to see the billow of his cape before he fell out of sight. 

The second floor of that building was completely empty. Not a monk, knight or teacher to be seen, the offices abandoned for how late it was. No security despite the archbishop residing up another flight of stairs- something was wrong.

The library door was shut tightly as it never should be and had the nerve to struggle when Dimitri tried opening it, the rattle of chains from the other side keeping it locked. Dimitri’s crest surfaced from deep within his desperation. The door handle warped, the wood splintered, the chains stretched and snapped, and within minutes of having received that damned letter, Dimitri would be coming face to face with its forger. 

Toppled chairs, thin deadly knives sticking out of bookshelves, a shattered teapot and heavy streaks of blood across the floors, originating from the table Dimitri and Claude had favored for its privacy. Yet Claude was nowhere to be seen. He ran in with no break to his frenzied search. Blood looped around the room, curling over the railing of the stairs, Dimitri’s heart stopping at the sight of Claude’s tattered tunic on the steps. 

A spot of brilliant yellow snagged in his peripheral, the wobbling steps of the man he adored taking him to the edge of the half floor, so unsteady that the railing did nothing to stop him from falling back into the air.

“CLAUDE!” Dimitri ran with outstretched arms, catching Claude as he fell to his knees, breaking the momentum of a fall that could have snapped his neck had Dimitri tried to rip him out of the air. He had seen pegasus knights knocked out of flight and the desperate soldiers who tried to save them, only to have their fellow soldier die in their arms. It was a thought forever present in Dimitri’s mind when Ingrid started taking flight, and doubly so when Claude talked fondly of wyverns. A sweet yet unnecessary concern, Claude had fondly reprimanded him. 

And yet, for however cumbersome his fears had been, they turned out to be right. 

“Claude, please, please…” Claude laid in his arms, the blood drenching his shirt making Dimitri assume the worst, yet no lethal blows laid under the thick stains. His skin feverish, unconscious yet convulsing as his body struggled with the effects of whatever poison had been tearing through his system. His breaths came out in short strained bursts, gasping for air that only just filled his lungs. “The infirmary is close by, we’ll get you help, I promise-” Dimitri spoke his pleas to a fate that had never given him mercy. 

A stair plank creaked. Dimitri’s panic became rage in the quick turn of his attention, to the man who wore Claude’s blood on his hands, who dared approach him once more, brandishing Claude’s dagger against him. 

Dimitri lowered Claude to the floor, pillowing his head with the bundle of his cape. He stood with a calm that could only be found at the bottom of a lake of madness. 

Whether Dimitri ignored the guards and knights the door of the library calling for him to step back to safety or simply did not hear them within the boiling rage, no one could say. The only thing guaranteed was that all those who witnessed the slaughter of the assassin would never forget the brutality of the prince’s strength, or the sound a human’s chest made when crushed into itself. Thrown down to the floor and life beaten out without the slightest hope of fighting Dimitri off. The ribs, the lungs, the heart, the scream that couldn’t escape and the prince, with all the unstoppable strength and apathy that could only be found in a force of nature. 

Dimitri lifted his fist and did the name to the assassins head, a blow to the nose completely disfiguring anything that looked human, caving the skull on. Then a third time, at his throat. Dimitri clutched at the collar of a corpse. 

Some who saw were frozen, some disgusted, some cried out, none moved. None until Sylvain, who had followed his future king here and was not a stranger to the sight of Dimitri’s viciousness, stepped forward. Foolish or brave, he was the one to call out to Dimitri.

“Hey!” He shouted, willing himself to be unflinching to the murderous icy gaze of the prince who watched Sylvain step closer to Claude, baring his teeth in an enraged scowl for he dared to step closer. “We can’t waste any time getting him to the monks! He’s alive but it’s not looking good, are you going to leave Claude like this to keep beating a corpse?” He demanded, lifting the Alliance heir in his arms.

“Claude…” As fast as the frenzy had overtaken Dimitri, it had left. He looked down to the pulverized mass of death and rage and blood with startling clarity, dropping it as if holding the once man up had delivered even a fracture of the pain back to Dimitri himself. He abandoned it before he could lose himself again.

“You’re right. Goddess, you’re right,” Dimitri looked at his bloodied arms as a fleeting thought to take Claude from Sylvain crossed, thinking better of it for the viscera that would further stain Claude.

“Yeah, I’m right. Come on!” They ran past the guards at the door, Seteth coming from wherever he had been and taking the situation over from the shocked knights. Claude had no idea what he would be waking up to.


	6. The immortal child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death chased Khalid from the moment he was born, so he had to be faster. A nightmare, a memory, the start of a legacy. Death never found him but it still searched. A look into Claude's childhood in Almyra and what it taught him.
> 
> Flashback chapter! This was originally going to be one part of a larger chapter, but the more I write the better I see its better standing alone. It's kinda short but the next one will be pretty long so buckle up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS!  
> assassination attempts, child abuse, abuse from siblings, parental neglect, canon typical violence.

Back when he only went by one name, Claude had known himself to be synonymous with an outsider. It didn’t feel that way at first, but that was only because he was a small child. Born to the queen, his room was next to that of his parents, and for a little while he thought it was because he was special. 

Soon he learned it was to keep him alive. The first attempt on his life was when Claude, then only known as Khalid, wasn’t old enough to remember it. His bed was moved into the heart of armed guards and the king's personal protection.

when he was 10 and the novelty of their child had worn off, they grew tired of his presence and he was moved into another wing, one adjacent to suites that belonged to his various older half-brothers. 

Khalid’s caretaker was killed in an attempt on his life the week after. Nima had woken him up in a hushed, panicked tone, the way they did when the adults were talking about something but didn’t want to worry him. He didn’t realize what was going on then, but he knew when Nima looked at him, fear in their eyes and hands cradling his head, asking him to promise he’d stay in his favorite hiding spot and not make a sound- that it would be the last time he saw those patient eyes that had taught him to shuffle cards and braid his hair. 

The finality of the kiss on top of his head, the distant steps, the suffocation of the space under his floorboards next to the window. A rug was dragged over the loose board, the heft of a chest placed on top, and he was trapped. 

When he heard fighting, he held his breath, when he heard screaming, he covered his mouth to not scream, too. The fighting didn’t last long.

The steps that approached his hiding spot didn’t belong to Nima. The voice that cursed his name was that of a stranger, and when the chest was opened he nearly forgot he was hiding under it and not inside. 

_ 'Where is the child?' _

_'He must have jumped out the window.'_ a second cruel voice said. Khalid flinched when the chest was slammed. 

_ 'No. We would have seen him running. Keep looking.' _

His next memory was his mom, shouting, guards loyal to her flocking. The assassins died there, both by her hand, the hand in which the Almyran King had married, the hand of a fierce warrior who could never be defeated in battle, who would never yield to any threat, who had fought dozens of assassins off and had no trouble fighting off two more.

Assassins had never managed to kill her, not even when she was at the height of her pregnancy, so those sending assassins began targeting her son instead. The only child of the King’s current consort, who fought her way into recognition, hadn’t been able to pass that blessing down to her son. 

She had screamed for him in an agony Khalid didn’t think capable. So strong, so steadfast, the bravest person he knew now convinced her son was already dead. He screamed back from under the floorboards. 

She had pulled him up, carried him out while screaming demands for the traitorous servants who allowed the assassins' passage to be found and brought to her directly, Khalid had seen Nima’s body through his blinding tears as a blur. 

He learned that Nima had uncovered an assassination plan on his life only an hour before it happened, having overheard it by chance because they had stayed late that night to keep his mother company while the King was away. The amount of people invested in the plot were more than could be smoked out, and those that were swore until death to secrecy. In the week following, half the servants were replaced. His tutors were replaced, even a chef who he’d known to make Nima’s favorite foods was gone. His dad had gutted the palace staff for its conspiracy.

He wasn’t allowed to attend Nima’s funeral. He didn’t get another caretaker after that, nor did he get a retainer or chaperone. No one could be trusted to be close to him. Instead, he got several combat teachers under close supervision of his mom. He learned to wield an axe, a bow, a wyvern, he learned to plot out careful movements hand to hand, and as Claude grew through his teenage years it became obvious he had inherited the likeness of his mother. Her blood had blessed him with a crest, to be slight, nimble, and easy to knock down in close quarters combat, so he kept at a distance. 

_'You need to learn to fight.'_ Khalid’s mom had told him after he’d broken down in tears from an unkind combat lesson. _'You can't even protect yourself. You think your tears will shield you?'_ She had grabbed his face to demand his attention, her own form of love speaking through her heavy handed honesty. She did not wipe away his tears. _'Whatever happens, you have to be ready. Look at me, Khalid! You have to be strong. You have to survive.'_

And so he did.

No one had the authority to keep his older brothers in place, for they couldn’t be executed or exiled like those outside their shared fathers bloodline. If their attempts on his life were too obvious, they would have faced consequences, but they always managed to skirt the line into heavy coincidence. Khalid learned that if he complained or accused his brothers, even as he wretched from poison and the bottle was still open in his half-brothers’ hand, nothing would be done. No one but the King had the authority to discipline them and he had an entire country to worry about first. His father met Khalid’s tears with disdain. 

_'I will not weigh myself with your weakness. Get up.'_ he had said. _'No one will fight for you if you are cowardly and don't fight for yourself.'_

Cruel to be kind. That’s what his mother had said. Cruel to be kind. 

His complaints got him called cowardly and weak, so he stopped complaining. He found other ways to rebuff them, he grew clever, he grew a silver tongue where the poison had once stained it, he talked himself out of corners and learned to be charismatic so that the servants who played witness to his beatings would care if he lived or died and offer assistance after the older princes had left. He couldn’t beat his brothers in contests of strength as the youngest, so he had to be faster than them. He couldn’t trust those who prepared his food or fixed his medicines, so he slowly grew an immunity to poisons, sampling them as he mixed his own antidotes. 

He learned to dodge arrows and knives in those not so accidental hunting accidents. He learned to hide low to the ground where prey animals commonly did. He learned which bushes had thorns and which looked to have thorns but didn’t and were safe to hide under. He learned to find his way home from the stars. He learned to climb up to his window, he learned the trick to unlocking it. He learned how to safely fall from a height when discovering his window ledge had been greased after leaving and entering through it became a habit. He learned how to grab a snake when waking up to a venomous one in his bed. He learned to survive.

He couldn’t trust those at the wyvern stables to retain a wyvern for him, not after he’d saddled one that launched him out of the sky and nearly bit his head off. So he scooped up one for himself that couldn’t be replaced by a bloodthirsty look alike. A white wyvern that was born weak and mutated, the runt of the litter and given little care compared to those which were bred to be only the best and trained to match the expectations of lords and princes.

He named her Nami.

She was a survivor, too, and no matter how many times people attempted to hunt her to spite Khalid, she was never one to be pinned down or hurt and could fly across the sky like a shooting star. He grew close with his remaining combat instructor, Nader, who would keep an eye on Nami for him and was someone Khalid grew to trust. His mother had stopped demanding he be tutored by several at once when he grew older and more proficient with each niche the other instructors offered. Nader taught him how to fly a wyvern and Khalid had prided himself in how naturally arming a bow had come when in flight, his approach far more acrobatic than traditional styles of the combat- and he excelled. 

At 14, another assassin had come. Many had come before this one and many would come after, but this was the closest one had come to taking his life. As his combat prowess increased so had the attempts on his life, being seen less as a nuisance and more as a real threat, and it seemed every single one of his siblings had to take a crack at ending his life. Some grew out of it and left the palace for their own pursuits, letting Khalid’s life be an issue they would come back to on a later day, and others who were closer in age grew to see how capable he was becoming and couldn’t let that pass without issue. 

He didn’t know who sent this assassin. Usually he could take an educated guess based on the assassins style, where he was being targeted, and how one might gather the information that the assassin would use. This time he had no idea. 

It started with a letter from Nader, telling him to come to the training grounds for night flying practice, Something Khalid had been pestering Nader for ever since he’d learned of it. 

He was meant to take flight on a wyvern at night, light several candles around the training area and perfect his aim by shooting at the flames to extinguish them. He had done this in training before he had ever saddled a wyvern, going from completely missing in the sudden change of lighting to spearing the candle in half to severing the wick from the candle completely. It only took a few small fires to get there. 

Khalid should’ve suspected something right away. Nader had rejected his requests, saying that the air was too dry to risk that sort of thing and that they could try it after a good night rain that was meant to come the following day. But the thought of getting out there, flying through the air weightless and with incredible precision, flying up in the sky until the flames looked like blinks of light, stars he could extinguish one by one, whispering a silent wish to each of them. 

He was too excited. Too naive. Too reckless. So armed with his bow and a forged letter, he made his way out to the furthest training grounds. 

He should’ve turned back when he saw Nader wasn’t there, when he saw no candles set up, all the stables empty and nothing but a single lantern in the center to illuminate the vast area. He had taken the bait, walking straight into the trap set up for him.

Khalid approached it like a moth, like a soldier to the front lines, and if not for the abnormal quiet, the knife that came flying would’ve landed its mark in his temple. All he had was a moment, a heartbeat to duck, the knife catching by the ends of his hair, digging itself into the wooden pole.

“Who's there!” He shouted, because he was still young and untrained in the ways of battle. He armed his bow, notching an arrow as he spun around to face the direction of the knife that had nearly taken his life. Someone stepped out into the faint light, footsteps so light they barely marked themselves in the dirt, so quiet that it could’ve been following Khalid the whole way here and he wouldn’t have known. 

He raised his bow, steadying his aim to the chest of the man stepping into the stretches of Khalid’s shadow. This man was not Nader, he was not a guard or a servant, clothes foreign and face obscured, slicing through the darkness like a snake slithered into the light, poised to strike. They stood there in a standoff with one another, Khalid refusing to let his hand shake, the assassin poised with two delicate, deadly knives between his fingers. 

He was ready to let the arrow fly, faintly aware that this would be the first life taken by his head. He should’ve let the arrow fly, but his second deadly error laid in his hesitation. Enough light crested over the top of Khalid’s head to illuminate the assassin's eyes. 

One blue, one green. Like from the land his mother was from. He’d seen nothing like it outside of the mirror and his mother’s steady, unflinching gaze. As one outsider faced down the other, Khalid’s hesitation became apparent and the assassin hadn’t wasted his opportunity like the unwanted prince had. 

His arm whipped and sent the knives between his fingers flying. One pierced into Khalid’s thigh like a cobra strike, the other grazing Khalid’s cheek. It narrowly missed and extinguished the light inside the lantern, plunging them both into complete darkness. Khalid swept himself off his feet. He learned to weave between an onslaught of blunt leadened arrows, a bloody nose from friendly fire sparring him of the certain death of a knife in his eye.

Just before the lowest point of Khalid’s tumble, when his back would hit the ground and skew his aim, he sent the arrow flying. It struck next to the assassin's feet, the killer leaping back before he could ready the next set of throwing knives. He disappeared back into the darkness.

Khalid bit back a scream as the knife in his thigh twisted from landing, arrows scattering from his back as he fumbled. The tumble was meant to be a careful motion, one that took into account the quiver on his back.

It did not accommodate his new injury. The pain that snuck past his adrenaline bit at his senses. But if he stopped now, he was dead. A third error would be his last.

He didn’t know where the assassin was, but he knew where he wasn’t.

Khalid bolted, eyes set to the boxes that lead to the low slope of the stable roof. Get out of range, get to high ground. He propelled up with his good leg, turning with his injured foot on a swivel to the wall. His good foot arced over and landed on the roof with a cat's grace, with a preys panic. 

Pain shot through him and up his thigh. He couldn’t risk driving the knife further into his leg. Any more damage and he’d start limping, no amount of adrenaline would reconnect a severed ligament. But if he stopped running he was dead.

He could make it to the roof, he could run from there. Where was the guard? Where were the servants? All the lights were out, how did an assassin get this far into the palace heart? 

Blood poured down his leg and slicked the roof underfoot. A falter kept Khalid’s nose from being sheared off his face, the thin knife exploding in a burst of shrapnel against the wall. He turned his head before it could land in his eyes. There, there he was, at the other end of the knife's path.

Khalid shot three arrows in quick succession from the direction the knife came from. His eyes adjusted to the sliver of light the crescent moon offered, following the footsteps of the assassin to judge his next shot, missing by a hair’s length each time. The assassin twisting his momentum sharply, launching himself back into a handspring and sending a knife in retaliation. He was so busy watching the assassin's feet that he lost track of his hands.

The knife’s collision with the arrow head exploded into sparks like a flint. It’s embers landed on the lantern’s corpse, setting it aflame once again in the dry summer air. 

Panic rose as he lost track of the assassin, hand grasping at air in his quiver. It took one more reach before he snagged on the end of one of his few remaining arrows, a knife slicing through the sleeve of his shirt along his bicep, blood burst from the clean cut. He notched an arrow with bruised fingers and returned the fire. 

Every strike was a risk to his life and Khalid’s only chance of striking back, sending his seventh arrow or retaliation. 

The assassin couldn’t stop moving, needing to stay fast like his target, trading blows with expert aim. They whipped around each other like falcons in battle. He moved quickly at the expense of moving quietly, dust kicking up with each dash across the training ground. 

Enough skirting around. The fight was finding its end for his target was a child with a short sighted escape. Speed over stealth to finish his execution. A bow would do nothing for the knife driven into his throat. He’d watch the pest die up close.

Khalid was cornered, the assassin wasn’t. He couldn’t stay in one place. Khalid whipped around, desperate for somewhere to run, somewhere to escape, something to hold on to and toss himself over the training wall. The assassin would grab him, he’d have no chance of survival.

A hand splayed out at the edge of the stable roof. Khalid ripped the knife from his thigh out and dug it into the hand of the assassin, pinning him to the roof. The assassin howled, kicking Khalid back with a foot to his chest, knocking all the air out of him.

He rolled out of it, chest burning and blood pouring from the open wound. Khalid turned and ran, certain he’d find an escape if he just kept going. Darkness was cornering out his vision, his bruised fingertips were cold. He couldn’t catch his breath. Khalid seen the healers work on devastating wounds before, he heard of Nima’s morbid stories as a battlefield healer, he knew that even if he got away, even if he killed the assassin, even if he’d managed to start the long run back, he’d be dead from blood loss.

But he can’t go down without a fight, he could never go down without a fight. He had to try.

He has to survive.

And something in his flowing blood sang. Something that ran deeper than the grudges held against him for being born, something found within life and loss and war and Gods, living, dead, or somewhere in between. 

Khalid’s legacy was not found in Almyra or Fodlan. His legacy was survival and the willingness to fight to do so. A light sparked in his chest and caught in his veins like dry brush. It burned to his fingertips like oil and ignited something Khalid had no name or knowledge of but had known as intimately as every one of his scars. 

The crest of Riegan surged through him like a second heartbeat. His mind cleared like the ocean parting. He knew what to do.

Khalid caught himself in a spin that would’ve snapped a common man's ankle and caught air, springing into the air higher than he’d ever been.

Time slowed. His wounds closed. Light from the fire caught on edges of the assassins silhouette. The world was oriented to him and the end of his arrow, and it’s release felt like shooting lightning from his fingers. It sunk into the assassins shoulder, another in his forearm before Khalid landed. 

He pulled his hand from the edge of the stable roof and threw up his arm in feeble protection; a third arrow embedded itself into the assassin's wrist.

Khalid’s very last arrow notched and pierced clean through his elbow, stopping short of his true aim of the assassins throat. 

The young prince saw the flames spire up the wooden stable and in one final blow, kicked the assassin off into the fire as he still screamed from the shattering of bones and nerves from Khalid’s arrows.

He breathed heavily, staring down at the falling form of the assassin. Fire danced around his tears. Embers burned his lips. 

Over his own heart beat and the falls of adrenaline he could hear distant shouting. The fire had caught the attention of those within the palace, coming to investigate and raising alarms over dead guards that the assassin had worked through before getting to his target. Among them was Nader, shouting for the prince like his mother once had, desperate to not come across his young corpse.

Khalid collapsed to his shaking knees. He won.

He survived. 


	7. Painful assumptions, pained silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claude wakes up from his flashbacks to Dimitri, in the infirmary. The painful side of young love is how easy it is to hurt each other, and yourselves. The painful parts of love is letting yourself been seen, be known, be exposed, to meet the parts of yourself you weren't ready to meet, to share pain you aren't fully ready to acknowledge.  
> Doing right by those you love is one of the hardest things in the world, and there's no amount of royal tutors or academy classes that can prepare you for it.
> 
> DISCLAIMER  
> There's no real trigger warnings needed, I think, but be aware this chapter is highly emotional and don't contextualize this chapter as some sort of score board of who did who the most wrong, that isn't the point. The point is everyone is confused, and worried, and hurt, and trying to do right by one another and themselves but don't know how to. Being human is confusing.

When Claude woke up, it was raining. His hearing was the first thing to come back to him in enough clarity to identify the world around him. 

Water beat against the glass in a spattering unique to nature's rhythmic and apathetic cycles. The storms were becoming more frequent and the sky reminded those below it that shelter was a hard fought victory against the colds to come. A hand held his own- warm and caring, a thick blanket covering all but the hand that had a quiet and kind attention laid to it. The brushing of his knuckles going to the pinky to the pointer finger and back again, another soothing pattern. It was peaceful. Claude would have fallen asleep if the assassin's face hadn’t flashed in his mind, if the memory of fighting for his life didn’t burn like the bile had in his throat, if the fall hadn’t still brushed his neck in a cruel memory.

He snapped up in bed, adrenaline firing through him with the panic. His hearing was the first to go then, ears ringing with the rush of blood. He tried looking around, but his eyes couldn’t focus with black ringing around his vision. The faintness of fatigue, different from the poison but still enough to send Claude tilting. He would’ve fallen off the bed if Dimitri hadn’t caught him.

“Claude…” Dimitri’s voice was hushed and the first thing that came back as his head spun, feeling himself get lowered back to lay against the numerous pillows, head cradled in strong hands. The world came back into view as it had before, slowly and with confusion. The first thing his eyes focused on was Dimitri, stooped at the bedside, looking into Claude’s sleep glazed eyes with a contradictory mix of concern and relief.

Dimitri, like himself, must’ve thought he might never wake again.

“What happened? There, there was an assassin, I was-” Claude tried to speak, but his throat was dry and voice too thick, his words cracked and could not go past the scratch of his thirst. 

“You’re in the infirmary, you’re safe now.” Dimitri said, hands slipping from his face too soon. Upon hearing his voice his attentioned turned to the bedside table, lifting a brass jug of water in one hand as if it were nothing, ignoring the glass set aside for it. Dimitri was quick to do so but unpracticed, better as a soldier who takes orders than a caretaker aware of the nuances of healing. Someone must’ve told him Claude would be dehydrated when he woke up, as is common for victims of poison. An array of items sat on the tray beside them both. A jug of water, jars and vials of medicine, a small dish of food with a cover tightly sealed over it. Dimitri had been preparing for when he woke up. “You’ve been asleep for some time now, I don’t know how much you remember. Lady Rhea saw to your healing herself, it's believed you caught the wrath of an attempt of her life in her place.” He spoke slowly and softly as he took a seat next to the bed. His hand fell to Claude’s back as he tried to sit up again, slower this time as to not fall and immediately render himself unconscious again.

Claude cleared his throat roughly. “And the assassin?” Surely someone believed to be after the Archbishop would be caught and interrogated. Being alive didn’t mean he was in the clear. Claude might as well be dead for all that the assassin could expose about him, his name, his birthplace, his life in Almyra. Assassins typically had ways of swift suicide should they be caught, but for how personal his hatred for Claude was-

“Dead.”

“Dead?”

“He won’t be coming after anyone again.” Dimitri had said it with such a brutal certainty that Claude just knew Dimitri had been the one to kill him. His grip on the jugs handle left imprints of his palm. Claude put a hand over his, trying to calm him so the thing wouldn’t snap and soak Claude through, knowing he wouldn’t be strong enough to hold it on his own. He brought the rim to his lips and drank in a dense silence, faintly and with much melancholy remembering how his affection for Dimitri had pricked through his heart in a gesture much like this, so long ago in the library. 

Claude quickly banished the memory from his mind, not wanting to sully that sweet moment by associating it with his near death experience.

Despite the heavy clouds blanketing the monastery from light, he could tell it was day time. Morning? Probably not. He was the only one in the infirmary besides Dimitri- good, no one else was injured. At some point he had been cleaned of the blood- his and the assassins, and put into a clean set of clothes. Even the blood that had caked his hair from tearing the assassins forearm open had been washed out, his braid undone and brushed out. A feather from the pillow poked out and into his shirt, loose from all the fluffing Dimitri had done when watching over him. The rain still fell, his wounds were stitched, and Claude was still alive.

“I thought I was a goner.” Claude said, amazed that he wasn’t. Dimitri’s hands now held Claude’s again, bare from his usual gloves. Dimitri was dressed down as well. His hands smelled strongly of soap. If the assassin was dead, Dimitri had killed him. If Dimitri had killed him, he scrubbed the blood from his hands just as the blood had been wiped off Claude. He wondered how much there was, if more blood had fallen on Dimitri than Claude himself, if the wood grain of the library floors was stained with blood as their fingerprints were, if the books smell like chamomile and belladonna, if his breath smelled the same. 

Dimitri kissed his hands. The scars on Dimitri’s hands ran up to meet bruised knuckles, blotched with the marks of killing blows, splayed over old scars that ran so deep that it’d left parts of Dimitri’s hands numb, disfiguring parts of his hands, his fingers, the cartilage and muscle. Claude knew he couldn’t feel between his pointer and middle finger of the right hand, marks of sores Dimitri would wear into them when writing his remorse down in the endless hours of the unforgiving nights. He held Claude’s hands with the softness he’d been training in himself for years, the gentleness of his touch would surprise anyone who saw how Dimitri could shatter weapons within his hold. Dimitri could shatter him. He wouldn’t. But he could. 

“Claude? Claude...?” Dimitri’s voice came back, distant but not far away, dampened in the fog of his mind but not lost to it. “Please. Look at me.” So Claude did. He struggled not to stare through him. Dimitri held his cheek, steadying his gaze where Claude could not, grounding him to the moment. “You’re safe now. I’ll tell you everything soon, but you need to rest. The monks have some medicine here for you, you’ll need to take them first. To… help you recover from the poison.”

The poison. He shuddered. How long had it been in his system? Would he ever be the same? Would he be on medicine for the rest of his life? Could his liver recover? His kidneys? Would his stomach turn at every meal?

“It should be out of your system by now. The Archbishop herself saw to it. She believes you saved her life, and with the aid of your crest there’s no irreversible damage.” Dimitri reassured, seeing Claude’s eyes dart in frantic thoughts. He searched Dimitri’s eyes for answers, wondering if he became a mind reader while Claude was out. “I… remember what you had said, when you told me about poisons. I tried to ask the right questions to get the right answers, ones to soothe your worry when you woke up. Goddess knows you have enough to worry about.” He leaned in to join Claude, pressing a kiss to Claude’s forehead. He sat at the edge of the bed, holding Claude to him for a long, silent moment. He felt Dimitri’s warmth against his side, the chill of fear fading like an unpleasant memory of a cold winter morning where the fireplace had gone cold long before he was ready for it to.

Claude’s hands were left with nothing to hold as Dimitri pulled away to fuss with the table side yet again. Vials and jars of medicines, magical, organic and both, next to a delicate ivory cup that had been subject to dozens of charms and spells in its decades, perhaps centuries, of medical use. Carvings and enchantments left it glistening and opalescent, a bone deep radiant of magic. A crest, the one Mercedes bore, carved into the side.

Dimitri pursed his lip, fingers shaking from nerve damage and unrivaled strength in his effort to not destroy the priceless item gifted to aid in Claude’s recovery, despite the fact a relic was the only thing unable to break under Dimitri’s strength. A cork flattened between his fingers. 

“Hey.” Claude touches Dimitri’s forearm. Aware- testing the waters of lucidity. “You bring that tray here and I do the mixing.” 

“Are you sure? You need to rest, Claude. Let me take care of it.”

“Your hands are shaking worse than mine.” Claude pointed out, giving the faintest laughter, he could hear his own exhaustion echoed back. “Come on, if anyone could break a holy relic it’d be you.”

“I, um,” Dimitri slid a folded paper from under the cup, wincing as it clattered over on the silver tray. Nothing was spilled from it and no damage was dealt, but it had been enough to make Dimitri furrow. “Asked for it to be written down, the... concoction.” He held it out to Claude. 

“Scared you’d forget?”

“There’s been much on my mind and medicine is not my strong suit. I didn’t want to risk leaving you alone to go looking for Mercedes when there is… very limited access to this building, currently.” Dimitri said, lifting the tray as Claude unfolded the note. Seteth’s handwriting was penned neatly on a church issued journal page, words bloated with technical terms that wouldn’t do well in the distressed mind of Dimitri. On the back was a simplification of the process written out by Mercedes. It doubled as a get well note with the doodle of a sunflower at the bottom corner by Annette, stating she helped translate Seteth’s obtuse academic vocabulary. 

“Did you get Seteth to premessure everything for you?” Claude asked.

“Did he?” Dimitri asked, setting the tray across Claude’s lap.

“He did. First line,” Claude cleared his throat, pitching his voice down to something pompous and stern, “Worry not, young prince, for I’ve taken care to sort and measure each ingredient. All I ask is you not damage anything in your haste.” 

Dimitri huffed in amusement that was only mildly self deprecating. “Well. I must’ve been in a worse state than I imagined.” 

“Are the pastries part of the treatment?” Claude asked, pointing to the sweets now uncovered, ones Dimitri kept safe from any potential tampering.

“Hah, no. It’s from Mercedes. And Lysithea. She delivered them upon Hilda’s suggestion, along with some other foods- but the smell of meat might make you nauseous before the medicine takes effect. At least that’s what Manuela said. Everyone’s worried about you, perhaps that put some in a culinary mood.”

“How long was I out that Lysithea was able to stress bake a whole cake?” Claude asked as he began pouring medicines in the order dictated. The dark sky muddied his sense of time.

“We’re well into the afternoon. 15 hours? 16? Lady Rhea said it was in your best interest to sleep through the worst of it.” Dimitri looked out the window that offered no answers.

“Have you been here the entire time?” Claude’s hand stilled part way through the delicate mixing. Claude looked at him, finding it hard to believe anyone could have been stood by an unconscious person for that long. The silence would be insufferable.

“Of course I was.” Dimitri said it with a gentle certainty, as if it was something obvious, looking puzzled, as if anything but remaining at Claude’s side was unthinkable. If Claude was well enough to blush, he would’ve.

“I guess I should be thanking you for that, keeping an eye on me. Even though I doubt there’s less than a dozen knights immediately outside this place. Had fun watching me sleep?”

“Oh don't suggest things like that.” Dimitri complained, rolling his eyes at Claude’s teasing. “Take your medicine, Claude.” 

“I’m getting to it.” He said, finishing the potion in silent focus. “Smells like dirt. Bottoms up,” He nodded the cup at Dimitri then drank it all in one go, before the taste could hit him. The effects were immediate, the vitality bursting through him before it could even reach his stomach, his esophagus tingling with magic. It ignited like a fire in his gut, the magic so potent that it was almost unbearable. From his guts to his bones to his skin, he shuddered as a drop of medicine was left on his lips, that itself too much not to shake at. Dimitri wiped it from his lip with his thumb. Every cup of coffee felt like a long nap in comparison to the Archbishops medicine cabinet. 

“There’s no sleeping after that,” Claude coughed into his fist. Magic. So intense. 

“Then what about food?”

“I’ll eat while you answer some of my questions.”

“Don’t hold your health hostage against me. Dedue made this for you, I told him you enjoyed rabbit meat.” Dimitri scolded, reaching for the bottom half of the bedside table where some food waited, covered and protected like a treasure chest behind Dimitri’s guard. Two poison attempts within the same 24 hours was unlikely, but he felt better with Dimitri’s silent attentiveness nonetheless.

The medicine got moved aside for a tray of rabbit and hardy vegetables. Cooked soft and left in a savory gravy, leaving Claude’s mouth to water even as it had been cooled. He’d thank Dedue for not leaving him with tooth aching sweets to supplement his exhaustion. Dimitri sat back with his hands on his knees, poised and nervous. Not a single part of his was relaxed, even if Claude waking up had done well to calm him. There was something on his mind, Claude knew that immediately. Dimitri was as good at hiding his thoughts as he was sewing. Claude had some questions of his own, ones he couldn’t take too much time in asking for who knew when someone else would come in.

But his stomach growled and panged with hunger, the nausea he expected to feel had gone and even minor magic healing always left him peckish, this degree of it left him feeling like he could best Rapheal at a feast. He knew if he needled at Dimitri’s restlessness, he’d be met with more insistence to take care of his health first. Which, usually wouldn’t stop him, but Dedue’s cooking was enough to tip the scales.

“Tell Dedue he’s a god amongst men.” Claude dug in, leaving Dimitri with an unexpected fit of laughter at the casual blasphemy. He ate within that liminal peace, feeling that the end of this drop of calm would guarantee hard conversations and difficult questions. So he would make the most of this peace, however long it may last. 

“You eat, too. Don’t make me tattle on you to Dedue, you know I’ll do it.”

Dimitri scoffed a laugh, softening the stiff edges of his anxiety. “Don’t tell Dedue.”

“Won’t have to if you start at what is clearly a second meal for you. You haven’t eaten all day, I just know it.” He didn’t, Claude was taking shots in the dark, but he was pretty good at those.

“Your deductions are sharp as ever, even now.” Dimitri confirmed, a soft shake of his head.

“That’s why I’m so hard to kill.”

“Here I thought it was because you don’t make anything easy.”

“Hey! I mean you’re right, but,” He pushed against Dimitri’s taunting, but there was no real bite to it, not when laughter shook Dimitri’s shoulders and blessed Claude with a sound that rivaled the rarity of holy relics. Dimitri relented and through a bit of taunting, and much concern, they both ate. Claude wished all moments could be this peaceful, this easy flowing, wished he could sit in the light of their affections all day.

But he couldn’t. Questions picked at the relaxed haze of this moment, working its way from the back of his mind to the tip of his tongue with every moment of silence, every bite of food held it back until there was none left to stifle his words. Dimitri finished before he did, good, because his curiosity couldn’t hold any longer.

“...How did I survive?” Claude asked before Dimitri could fall into idle talk. “The last thing I remember, I took a dive off the second floor. Blacked out before I hit the ground, but I should’ve at least broken my neck- unless I did and Her Righteousness stitched that up.” He spoke candidly, because if he did then at least his casualness gave him some degree of control over another scar on his psyche, another hard lesson learned. 

Dimitri wasn’t so keen on Claude’s attempts of normality, his expression souring at the morbidity. 

“You didn’t hit the ground.” Dimitri said, shoulders straight as he busied himself to clear the tray from Claude’s bed like a caretaker. “I was there before you did, I suspected something was wrong and came to you as fast as I could. When the library was chained closed, I knew for certain something was wrong.” 

“So you broke your way past those chains with your super strength? All on a hunch?” Claude already knew the answer. He could barely rattle those chains and knew Dimitri’s strength was immeasurable, yet the reminders never stopped leaving him dumbfounded. He probably broke past the iron like it was string.

“I couldn’t just turn around. The whole monastery noticed my haste and it… drew attention.”

“Sad I missed it.”

“I saw you then, falling past the railing and got to you just in time.” Dimitri took a stilted breath. “I’m just lucky I wasn’t too late. I should’ve been there sooner, really, then all this could’ve been avoided.”

“Hey, don’t start with that. You would’ve gotten poisoned the same as me if you were, and I don’t take you as the type to have a belladonna tolerance.”

“And you do?”

“Well I didn't keep it up enough, that’s obvious.”

“Claude.” He said sternly.

“Kidding, kidding- kind of. Not… really, but I knew what I was doing.”

“And why did you take up such a task?” Dimitri asked. It was a question so obvious to follow up with, yet Claude had gotten so used to Dimitri not questioning his off handed half jokes that it caught him off guard. He slowly sipped some water to avoid answering the question, and kept drinking when Dimitri let the question hang in the air of silence, and even motioned for the pitcher when he felt Dimitri staring him down. Dimitri made no move to amuse his stalling. 

“...I was a weird kid?” Claude offered, hoping it could be written off as an eccentricity. There was something in Dimitri’s eyes that was hard to look directly into- not suspicion, gods he knew how that felt too well, but… something else. “So how’d you figure something was wrong? Did you start a riot to the library on a whim?” Claude asked, hoping to change the subject.

Dimitri pulled out a note tucked away in his waist pocket, the familiar page of Claude’s own journal. It was wrinkled and worn, faded where it had been folded and unfolded, spots of ink worn off from how often it had been handled. He thought he successfully distracted Dimitri, but what came of the question was a worse revelation.

“An assassin who leaves forgeries. You told me about it once before. I hadn’t asked more about it back then because it was something that deeply troubled you, even if you made jokes about it.” He held it out to Claude, who snatched the note from Dimitri as if that would make him forget what was written down in the bottom corner. “It was too out of place to not draw concern, and then the signed name. Khalid.” 

Khalid. Written in a hand meant to pass as his own was a name that wasn’t his in Fodlan, the pronunciation clumsy in Dimitri’s mouth.

“What is this about? Who is trying to kill you? Who wants you dead so badly that they sent an assassin, twice now, _at least._ He breached into the heart of the Monastery, something no one has done before, to kill you.”

This was bad. He stared at the name, willing it to change, wishing Dimitri’s questions would end.

“Have you told anyone else about this? This note?” Claude asked, all attempts of playful rebuffs falling from his voice, all pretenses and coy deflecting replaced with an exhausted seriousness.

“...No. I haven’t. I only want to hear from you. I meant what I said, I don’t want to increase your troubles.”

Only wanted to hear from him. Sweet, well meaning Dimitri, who he kissed with such fever, where thoughts of him occupied what Claude thought would be the last moments of his life. Kind and earnest, Claude could tell him anything if he had enough conviction, he would be so easy to deceive-

But so, so hard to lie to. Dimitri who saved his life, who shared his carefully kept grief, who held his hand like it was life’s simplest yet greatest joy, who so easily made Claude feel bashful and full of nervous young love, whose soap smelled of citrus and sweet grass, who stayed by him at his weakest and blinded Claude from his better judgement. 

“The assassin was Almyran.” He said, slowly breaking into the truth. “Maybe it was… a misspelling. Khalid’s a common name there.” He said, because a weaker part of him wanted to be able to back track what he’d already decided on.

“If that was his second attempt on your life, how would he not know your name?” Dimitri rebuffed. He made it easy to rebuff, not even half his heart left to try and convince Dimitri of something that he could use to run from the truth. “A man so determined as to sneak past the Knights of Seiros, to weaken you before his attack, and yet he wouldn’t know your name? Claude that entire attack, it was so- personal,”

“Don’t! Don’t. You don’t have to go into detail. I get it.” Claude snapped, and it wasn’t fair that he snapped, but he wasn’t thinking about fair right now. Dimitri didn’t recoil. He didn’t flinch, he didn’t bend or snap back, but instead stared back at Claude, dignified and unwavering as Claude felt his world would be one well placed question or badly told lie away from unraveling. And that wasn’t fair.

“...I cannot control you or whatever answer you give me, or if you wish to give me any at all. All I can ask is that you don’t lie to me. Please.” 

“Lie to you? Okay. I won’t lie to you. You’re a good guy, Dimitri. You’re so sweet it's baffling, your strength and loyalty saves you from how reckless you are, and I adore you. More amazing than that, I trust you. But if I told you everything, actually everything, there’s no saying you would ever trust me again, or even look at me.” He lost his better judgement as he often did in front of Dimitri, and the parts of him that felt the most pain spoke.

“What are you getting at?”

“What am I to you?” Claude asked, answering questions with questions. “A friend? A lover? Something more? Something less? Something temporary is most likely.” He turned to face Dimitri one on one, no longer dodging whatever his eyes could give away. “What we have, it’s temporary and fun, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m not asking for anything more. But if I tell you everything, what does it change? Our paths are already set out before us. The Academy will end in a few months, you’ll be King, I’ll be- herding nobles in the Alliance, and then I’ll leave.”

“You’ll leave?”

“I’ll leave. I have to leave. And all of this? Right now? It’ll be the only thing to change. It can still be a good memory. It can still be us, having fun before politics devoids us of a private life, and I can still be the guy two doors down who called you his lover before anyone could call you a king. So do you want that to change? Is it worth it? Do you really want to know why everyone wants me dead? Would you want to know even if it meant you might want me gone? If I can no longer be who I am to you already? If you can never trust me, if you ever did? And if you want to know so badly, how about leveraging some secrets of your own. If I’m in no position to deny things then you shouldn’t be either. Or do you just want to be lovers, and I won’t invade the other parts of your life.” He spoke in a frenzy. Could Dimitri make sense of this? Could Claude make sense of his own words? Maybe not. Maybe he could hide behind that confusion, maybe he could be spared of the truth and how dangerous it was, maybe this could be shrugged off as hysteria in the wake of something traumatizing, or a side effect of the medicine. 

There was a long, maddening silence, where all they could do was stare and listen as the rain suffocated them further. 

“Is that how you see me? Am I that disposable?” Dimitri’s pained question sobered Claude from his panic, if only for a moment, it was long enough for cold guilt to hit him and settle like sea water in his lungs. Fun. Temporary. 

Disposable. 

Used. 

That’s how he made Dimitri sound. 

“Dimitri, no… I, I’m so sorry, that’s not…” He raised his hands as he spoke, reaching for Dimitri as if that could fix how easily he just broke his heart.

“Even if you see me that way.” And there Dimitri’s hands were, holding his once more, holding to him like a lifeline he got tangled in, one that might drown him. “I don’t know what’s happened to you or why you’re so dedicated to solitaire when you almost died- and not for the first time! I have never lied about what I think of you. You’re brilliant, and so radiant. You bring this hope that I’ve never seen before, and yet you’ll work so hard to keep yourself detached from everyone.” Claude ripped his hands from Dimitri’s, turning away from the pained gaze that held Claude’s attention like a mirror. Claude was already so exposed, the assassin cracked his ribs open for his weak heart to be harvested and held to the light. To be judged and rejected, to be scrutinized and abandoned, mocked and detested. Now here Dimitri stood, picking up the pieces of what had been torn from his chest, flipping them over with hands that always tried to be gentler than the last touch. (He wished Dimitri fought harder to hold on to him.)

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Claude held his hands to his chest, the only part of himself left to guard his heart.

“I’m not blind! If you want to break my heart then it’s yours to break, and you can leave me a lovestruck fool who felt too deeply for what was between us. But please don’t break your own heart, don’t break the heart of everyone who's waiting for you to leave this room.” Claude was turned back around, Dimitri’s hands on his shoulders. “If you die, if this kills you, if you’re hurt when there is something that could be done to protect you, it’s a loss the world could never heal from. There are so many people who care for you. Please, Claude, I know you’ll deny it but I can see how much you’re hurting. I can’t undo what you’ve already suffered, but I’d like to make it so you’re not alone within it anymore.” 

He stared up, silent as Dimitri cupped his face and looked him in the eyes to know he was still alive. “I can’t bear for you to be hurting like this. And I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Anything at all, anything that keeps you from this fate.”

And what could he say to all of that? What could he say that made it all okay, that met Dimitri with all the foolish kindness he offered, that made it sound like Claude believed all the promises held in those words, the love Claude couldn’t let himself feel, the crumbling walls made of stacked paranoia and tricks and secrets, softened by yet another close call, only to be built up taller and stronger once the tears stopped flooding and the pain dulled. 

The pain had faded as fast as it came, dispelled by magic potions and enchantments and long cultivated medical practices. But the tears? They stung his eyes, blurred his vision, stuffed his nose and bit his breath off into sobs. He couldn’t hide them from Dimitri or dry them in secret, on bandages he used to patch his wounds while hidden in some forgotten room. 

They bled into the cloth of Dimitri’s shirt, hiding himself from the world in Dimitri’s arms, curled up with his head on his shoulder, letting himself be comforted for the first time since that first assassination attempt, since he lost Nami. Dimitri held him close, sat on the bed while Claude wept as silently as he could, running a hand over his back and through his hair, never once pulling away or loosening his hold. He didn’t demand anything of Claude then, and for all he knew they could’ve been sat there for a minute or an hour. When his sobs stopped shaking him, when his tears gradually stopped, when his head cleared from his own heartbeat and the steady rhythm of Dimitri’s could be felt on his cheek, the rain had stopped. The clouds parted to give their first offering of light so close to nightfall, brushing against Claude’s cheek as if the sun itself wished to comfort him. 

“I’ve underestimated you, huh? This whole time I’ve been learning about you, you’ve been figuring me out, too.” Claude whispered. He felt seen. He felt exposed. He didn’t know if he liked it, he wished he could say he hated it.

“I’m sorry.” Dimitri apologized, and it stung. Dimitri moved away, sitting further down the side of the bed now that Claude’s tears have stopped, and Claude wished he fought harder to hold on to Dimitri.

“My secrets. The answers I can give you will likely be only strange.” Dimitri started, drumming his fingers along Claude’s palm. The reality of what Claude had said sunk in, bittering the waters of comfort Dimitri had led him to. He was too stunned to stop Dimitri before he could pay Claude’s price, before he could apologize for speaking of Dimitri’s life as a token for politics or love as a sweet yet empty affair.

"My uncle still looks upon me with disdain for not burning the land which his brother died on, and resents that I don’t fit in my father’s war armor. The ones that they did not bury him in for there was barely a corpse to dress. And I pretend to not notice, and pretend I don’t know he’s been fathering children in secret for years now in hopes one will be born with a crest and a valid claim to the throne, to replace me. And I pretend I do not see those who support his plans speak with false joy of my coronation, or stand amongst my friends' parents. Or those… Who i used to call friends, who mourn what was lost and resent me for being unable to hold on to it. There is no love that can be spoken for me, not without the shade of my debts owed or due. The throne is my birthright, and a punishment for not dying when I should have.” Dimitri said, laying his secrets before Claude. Claude had not expected this, having been so swept up in his own rainfall of sorrow that he forgot he’d demanded that of Dimitri to begin with. Guilt stood where curiosity once had, for the first time in his life Claude wished he could not know. There was no satisfaction in drawing these answers out of Dimitri, demanding them from him after demeaning their relationship in his lapse of judgement and desire to strike back at a world that struck him down so many times. 

“He’s… staging a coup?” Claude asked, for what else could he say? Claude had set his price. These were his consequences.

“Unsuccessfully. It all hangs off the birth of a child with a crest, and he’s been fruitless in those efforts. If it were to have been as planned, the child would’ve been born long ago. His latest mistress is set to give birth after my coronation.” Dimitri smiled then, sad and distant, a drop of fondness to his own demise that chilled Claude. “I suppose I should be afraid of that, shouldn’t I?”

“Yeah. Yes, Dimitri, you should. And why aren’t you? Do you know how violent Fodlan coups get?” 

“I’m well aware. And yet, I can’t help but feel at peace. When I’m gone, no matter how quickly that end comes, there will be someone to take the throne. Someone… more desired for the position, with less regrets weighing their crown. Before then, I’ll do all I can to keep the promises I’ve made. That is the only true meaning my life holds. I’m not as valued as my titles may have you think.”

“Whoa there, don’t be so dismissive about your own life.” Claude said, because he was a hypocrite. “Do you _want_ to die?” Claude asked. And it was a rhetorical answer, but the shame in Dimitri’s eyes before he lowered them, the guilty certainty of his gaze, it froze Claude like ice over gravestones and hiding spots under floorboards. “Dimitri…”

“You asked for secrets, didn’t you?”

“You can’t be so reckless with your life.”

“How’s that different from what you’re doing?”

“It is different! It’s different because… because...” And again he hesitated. Yet Dimitri, stubborn as he was, wouldn’t push again.

“I should go inform Manuela you’ve woken up.” He went to stand, giving Claude an out from this conversation, a way for it to end. For his secrets to stay in tact. But leaving it like this didn't feel right, and he would regret letting Dimitri leave. He grabbed Dimitri’s wrist, unable to live with himself if he walked out right now.

“My name is Khalid.” He held Dimitri’s gaze with certainty, and said his own name with a regalness he hadn't known himself to possess. “I was born in Almyra to Tiana von Reigan, who passed her father's crest down to me, and to the King of Almyra. As it stands, I am her only child and the youngest Prince to Almyra.” 

For all the speculations Dimitri had, that was not one of them. His wildest theories could not touch the truth of Claude’s birth, for his theories never extended beyond Fodlan’s borders. Claude didn’t let go through the shocked silence that stunned Dimitri, because neither of them would be allowed to run away from this. There was a fire to Claude’s eyes, to Khalid’s eyes, that didn’t stem from panic, but instead determination. Dimitri was floored.

“Those brothers you had once mentioned...” Dimitri said, piecing together all Claude had told him of his life in this new context.

“Other princes. Half siblings. I’m the youngest but my mom’s still alive as Queen consort and in the King's favor after all these years. If that wasn’t enough to hate me, she’s from Fodlan, a place Almyra has never had consistent peace with.”

“So the assassin,”

“I don’t know who sent that assassin the first time, let alone now. I don’t- I don’t know if someone from my dad's side tracked me down or if I have some new enemies after me here. I don’t know how much they know about me or how quickly others will turn on me just because of where I was born. I’m scared, Dimitri.” 

And now it was Dimitri’s turn to not know what to say, and sew new regrets. That’s the thing about young love, isn’t it? Guilt blooms from it twice as fast. 

“Claude, I…”

“I’m sorry, Dimitri. I shouldn’t have said that. I should’ve said anything but what I did to you. You’re not disposable,” that word felt so dirty now, “I’m not just using you for fun, but I can’t go telling everyone why I’m in danger without risking more of it. I need you to understand that. And I really, _really_ don’t want you to leave right now. Not like this.” and Dimitri could leave, and Claude wouldn’t stop him, and it wouldn’t be unexpected, nor undeserved, but Dimitri’s hand slid into his own anyway.

He sat back down next to Claude, who squeezed his hand and tried best not to stare. Mutually dumbfounded and unsure.

They both looked forward, unable to look at one another, yet still joined at the hands, thinking of ways to apologize to the other, to undo things they said or backtrack what couldn’t be unsaid. But there was no rewriting the past. Even if it was mere minutes ago. So they sat there, together, exhausted in a whole new way, collecting thoughts.

But, as young love doesn’t always do, they would try to understand one another. 

“I'm sorry for needling. I wished to understand and now I do, but with the cost of your security. I'm sorry. I should’ve at least waited.”

“For how much I talk about not following people blindly, I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t understand.” Claude said. Maybe it wasn’t okay, but he could understand, at least.

“You...” Dimitri started, sounding lost, sounding not like a prince but of a young man in the unknown waters of love, "you said not to leave it like this. How do we leave it on?" Dimitri asked.

"I don't know." Claude admitted, terrifying as it was. It was laughable, Claude thought faintly, two important politicians, two (hopefully) future kings, sitting on an infirmary bed, holding hands and left speechless by their inexperience. He would laugh if it was anybody else. He searched Dimitri’s face, trying to figure out what exactly he was thinking to no success, scared that he had misunderstood Dimitri all this time. He searched his own mind for the right words. He searched for the important parts, tried to list it all in his head, to order it. There was a lot to be said, and his endless plans fell flat, unable to speak for how he ached. "Dimitri… what i said, about the… the lovers thing, I didn't …" his words closed in his throat.

"None of me can bring myself to hold anything against you. There's enough pain between the two of us for life times, surely less has driven people to worse than harsh words to their… companion. There's far more to worry about than that." Dimitri said, striking the word lover from his mouth before it could leave. Claude felt cold in its absence, feared the weight in the air was that of a broken heart. That of loneliness. He was right, there were so many things to worry about, and if Claude were a third party hearing of two princes glazing over their deep political troubles to talk about their academy romance, he would laugh at how trivial it was. And so he had trivialized it, as someone practiced in compartmentalized feelings would. 

"You're not. You're not just a companion, Dimitri. I… " I like you so much it scares me. I like you so much it might be love. I don’t know what love is. I don’t know if we’re too young for love when we’re old enough to die for politics. I wish you didn’t press. I wish I didn’t hurt you. I wish I didn’t already plan to dismiss this relationship after graduation. I wish I knew if you were planning the same. I wish I didn’t assume that you were. I wish I didn’t need to assume that kind of thing. I wish you could say my name. Claude had so much to say that he fell mute. Maybe he should've let Dimitri leave, let himself tie together some sort of sense, some practicality, rein in his impulses. Claude didn't know how long he stared, wordless, out of his depths. 

"Hello? Your Highness, are you still there?" Manuela spoke before she could take in the scene she had walked in on, being met with the alarmed gazes of Dimitri and Claude, whose hands were frozen over one anothers. "Oh, Claude! Good, you're awake." She said awkwardly, trying not to make it evident that she had immediately confirmed their relationship for what it was. Perhaps Dimitri staying by his side could be explained away as a sense of nobility, of responsibility for having found Claude the way he did. But that couldn't explain how close they were, or how much panic was in the way their hands ripped apart, or how heavy the air was with their restless hearts and restless fears. "Well, it's certainly not expected and yet I can't say I'm surprised." She said, amused and jealous in the way she always was when she saw a young couple. 

"Professor Manuela." Dimitri said after clearing his throat, his face caught aflame with embarrassment. He shot up, shoulders squared and back straight. Their delicate moment ruined so quickly. Dimitri left upon Manuela’s dismissal, saying she had no time to waste being third wheel. He had lingered at the door, and they tried to see each other once more through the heavy fog of silence. Then the door closed, and only a sense of loss remained. 


	8. The gall, the audacity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claude is out of the infirmary but things are far from resolved. He tries to regain his strength at the training area but can't find his focus, and then has a back to back run in with two of Dimitri's boldest classmates. Felix and Sylvain give Claude some new perspective; at the cost of having to deal with their bullshit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been awhile, hi! As I'm moving forward in what I have planned for this story, there will be some shifts on focus on to other characters. I plan to see this out to the end, timeskip included, so get ready to see more of Sylvain and Felix in the future. Consider this a kind of introduction to their relevance. This chapters meant to be a little funnier to go along with the drama, I hope you like it!
> 
> tw: talk of child soldiers

"You're over correcting."

"What?" 

"You're over correcting with your aim." Felix repeated, sheathing his sword back on his hip. Claude blinked, lowering his bow to stare at it, as if he could find the flaw written across its curve. He looked back up at the target he'd been firing at, his shots centered in a cluster yet never splitting one another the way Claude wanted them to. He'd been doing archery for years, he excelled at it, a natural with the right drive to propel him into mastery. Splitting arrows should be child's play at this point. 

So why was he missing his shots? He'd gone longer periods without training than a measly 4 days. He raised his bow again, falling smoothly into form, paying close attention to the angle of his arms- the wind, the shadows, the light reflecting off the whites of the targets- docked an arrow, and fired. 

It landed in the yellow. His worst shot yet.

"That was pathetic." Felix deadpanned. Claude's ears burned.

"Really not sugar coating it, are we?" Claude's smile was strained and humorless.

"If you’re the type that needs it sugar coated then you're a lost cause." Felix said, still as blunt. 

"I wasn't disagreeing with you." Claude muttered, starting the long walk over to pull the arrows from the target. This was an annoying part of archery, reaching back and finding an empty quiver, and worse if it was a shared training area, because sometimes people wouldn’t stop firing even if someone was out by the targets. But they were alone right now. The benefits of skipping lunch, he guessed. He hadn’t expected Felix to follow in tow, but that might as well happen for how his training was going. He stared down the annoyingly intact arrows as he approached. He usually split them. He was a menace to clean up after and had to resort to making his own arrows from time to time, using smithing pliers to pry off the metal tips from splintered wood and toss them into the bottom of his quiver for repurposing. Now the pliers hanging off his quiver was little more use than a weird accessory. Of the two dozen freshly made arrows, only two were so much as grazed. Claude frowned before he could catch himself, running a thumb over the slit in the wood. 

"18 and already past your prime. The Alliance really is undisciplined." Felix said with a disapproving shake of his head. And maybe Claude was a little worked up today, because he engaged.

"If you have some actual criticism then I would love to hear it, but if you're only here to trash talk then make yourself scarce, will you?" Claude said, lip twitching as his disingenuous smile hung like a hook. He wouldn't make excuses for himself but he wouldn't stand around getting insulted. Claude yanked another arrow out faster than necessary, tossing it back into his quiver. 

"You're too focused." Felix said, getting a sideways look from Claude.

"Can you elaborate on that?" Claude asked. Felix rolled his eyes.

"You're too in your own head." Felix grabbed an arrow and slid it into Claude’s quiver, returning to collecting arrows with mechanical focus rather than looking at Claude. Claude stared at him for a second before doing the same. They gathered the rest of the arrows in silence, which was somehow the least awkward part of their sudden and unprompted interaction. Felix shoved the last arrow into Claude’s hands directly, turning around and walking back to the start of the firing range without waiting for him. 

Claude eyed Felix up as they walked, wondering why he'd be here talking to Claude right now. He mentally ran through what he knew of Felix during the silent walk back, where they went the same way yet with enough distance to not be considered walking together. Felix Hugo Fraldarius kept to himself, distant from other students as well as those within his own class, spending most of his time training. He was the only student here with a major crest and the top swordsman of the student body, though wasn’t bad with dark magic and unarmed combat either.

Oh. And he didn't like Dimitri. That was something everybody knew, something Claude first heard from listening in on Felix’s confrontation of Dedue. He’d made a mental note to keep his distance from Felix after that, turned off from the idea of getting to know him after he called Dedue a dog, not a drop of self awareness of his nobilities wrong doings to the people of Duscur. Maybe eavesdropping was wrong, but he knew Dedue would never share that with anyone, as reluctant to speak of his troubles as he was to accept Claude’s attempts at friendship. (He agreed not to share Claude’s habit of _“overhearing”_ if Claude agreed not to tell Dimitri it happened.) That had been Claude’s initial take away, but now he recalled the conflict supposedly stemmed from Felix’s issue with Dimitri.

He asked Dimitri about it once after the fact. Felix's room was right in between his and Dimitri's, and considering how often they spent nights together, it wasn't uncommon for Felix to emerge from his room at the same time they were leaving one another's. Usually Felix completely ignored them as he did other students, but not the first time it happened.

Dimitri was leaving Claude's room early one morning, going right at the crack of dawn in an effort to avoid running into any other students and making their relationship more obvious. It wasn't _exactly_ a secret, but it wasn't common knowledge either, and Claude liked to keep in that causally ambiguous middle ground with its wiggle room and plausible deniability. 

Claude almost slept through it, too. It wasn't unusual for Dimitri to slip out while he slept. He knew it was a good call even if waking up alone gave him a pang of loneliness- but Claude woke up just in time that morning, and he wasn’t one to let an opportunity slip. Tired but fuzzy with warm feelings and a new freedom to act on them, he didn't stay in bed. He got up quietly, soundlessly moving the sheets and avoiding the squeaky floor boards, all while staring Dimitri down, amazed he’d gone undetected by the hypervigilant Prince. Delightfully, he hadn't noticed Claude was out of bed and ready to pounce. It was hard to catch Dimitri off guard so he reveled in the rare chance for a sneak attack. Claude lept at Dimitri, pinning him to the door to grab a last second good morning kiss. He leaned hard on Dimitri because he liked to randomly test his strength and loved when Dimitri would hold him up with ease in turn. It went differently this time. In his early morning prowl, Claude didn't notice Dimitri had already opened the door, that he was distracted because he was waiting for someone to pass. The door took their weight and they spilled into the hallway, nearly colliding straight into Felix. Claude’s arms around Dimitri too telling and Felix too vigilant for subtly to be salvageable. Claude’s sneak attack was too sneaky. The realm of plausible deniability was well out of bounds.

Then things got weird. That was the only word Claude could give it. Weird. Out of Claude’s depths weird. The tension was so stiff that Claude almost didn't know what to do with himself. Dimitri apologized immediately, almost compulsory while Claude backed off into his room and acted like he hadn't just come crashing into the hallway. 

And Felix? When the surprise wore off, he set Dimitri with such a hard glare that Claude instantly recognized the bad blood between them. A bitterness worse than Felix's baseline antagonizing of seemingly everybody he came in contact with. Claude tried to apologize but was promptly cut off, Felix was completely disinterested in Claude’s half of their predicament. He called Dimitri a wanton boar with some other choice words then shoulder checked Dimitri on his way down the dorm hall. When Claude asked, Dimitri told him they had a history together, going far back into their childhood and not all of it was good. There was guilt in Dimitri’s words, but there was guilt in most of what Dimitri shared about his past. He wished he knew what there was worth defending about Felix the way Dimitri did, or if he would do the same if he knew the way Felix spoke to Dedue. He didn’t press for more because of how uncomfortable it made Dimitri, but now Claude wished he had. 

Especially because Felix was acting like he had something to say. There was an odd tone to his presence, the words just beyond his teeth were taking form but not yet ready to be spoken. Claude knew it was coming but stayed quiet about it, wanting to see what Felix had planned for his sudden interest in talking to him.

Felix waited expectedly behind the standing line for the shooting range, hands on his hips, staring Claude down. 

“So in the most non-confrontational way possible, what is it you’re standing around watching me for?” Claude asked, notching an arrow. He chose to be non-confrontational but Felix clearly did not.

“For you to make your shot, obviously. You’re first in archery behind select Knights of Seiros, but you can’t even make your mark. I’ve seen you here enough to know your game of destroying arrows. Your miserable handling of your own weapon is ruining my focus, so if you can’t do that then go back to the infirmary until you stop being a liability, maybe the monks can heal your inadequacy.” Felix was clearly trying to goad him- the insults stung but anything was better than the funk he was stuck in. You know what? Claude could go for some antagonizing right now. Felix was right, he was stuck in his own head, and a combative spark might just be enough to knock him out of it. 

Claude didn’t break eye contact with Felix as he raised his bow, letting his smile break to reveal a tinge of defiance. Claude’s mind cleared. He wanted nothing more than to prove Felix wrong. He shot twice before he could overthink it. The sound of wood snapping as the arrow burst was more satisfying a song than any shanty. Felix forfeited his conflict as he broke eye contact first, looking at what Claude already knew was there. 

“Look at that. An acceptable shot.” Felix huffed, finding the most dismissive way to admit Claude made him eat his words. 

So maybe Felix wasn’t all that insufferable. Claude was invigorated, motivation sparked at the sight of the arrow split and driven deep into the center. He rolled his shoulders to shake out his fatigue, the fake smile on his face replaced by one more lively. 

“Hey, thanks, Felix.” Claude gave his arm a friendly little thwap with the back of his hand, startling the disgruntled Kingdom noble who wasn’t used to any kind of playful contact. “Who knew all I needed was a bit of your crass pseudo-encouragement. You’d make a great teacher.” Claude both thanked and teased, knowing by the soured expression he hit a second mark with Felix. 

“I couldn’t train while you polluted the air with your bad shots.” Felix swatted Claude’s hand, a blush sneaking up on his cheeks from the light hearted flattery.

“Whatever you say, tough guy.” Claude drew another arrow, aiming for the same spot, and loosed it to a bullseye. He shot another, wanting to ride out the good streak now that he had it. Maybe this could be enough to turn his whole mood around.

“I only approached you because you’ll need self defense capability. Something in your back pocket when you break things off with that boar. It’s suicidal to approach a wild animal unarmed.” Felix said. Claude’s next shot clipped. Felix scrutinized the miss under a sharp. There goes Claude’s good mood. He lowered his bow and raised his defenses, knowing this to be the topic Felix had been masking from the start. “You were thinking about him when you missed your shots, weren’t you?” he continued, and Claude was much more displeased that Felix was right.

Of course he had been thinking about Dimitri. Claude swore he could still feel Dimitri’s touch on his arm from their simple brush with one another. He had been on his way to the training grounds when their paths crossed. Dimitri was being escorted to an audience with Archbishop Rhea, but he had stopped to look at Claude, to reach out for him. Claude would’ve dropped any plans of training right then and there, but the Knight was looking at them, awkwardly prodding for Dimitri’s attention, pleading he couldn’t be late to see the Archbishop. Dimitri either blatantly ignored the Knight or tuned them out, but Claude could feel the awkward position they put the Knight and themselves in clear as day. Although the Knights of Seiros only answered to Church authority, Dimitri still held rank over them and couldn’t be treated like another rowdy student. Claude pulled Dimitri’s hand off his arm, insisting he not keep anyone waiting, and left before he could be consumed by the feeling of Dimitri’s hands on him.

Claude was thinking about how he wanted to feel it again but still didn’t know what to say. Sure, they made apologies in the infirmary, but Claude didn’t know if they were good enough. He didn’t know how he felt having Dimitri know what he did, either, or the fact he learned it through Claude’s horrible handling of the situation. Claude was stuck on the fact he didn’t avoid this risk in the first place because he had patronized their relationship rather than telling Dimitri to drop it. How after it, Dimitri had still been willing to pay the price Claude set when lashing out, how Claude didn’t stop Dimitri from making himself vulnerable in turn despite feeling so ashamed. The way Dimitri insisted because he cared so, _so_ much but couldn’t possibly fathom the scope of Claude’s secrets, that they laid beyond Fodlan’s borders and influence. 

Claude didn’t know how to handle the new feelings that came from it at all. The feeling of not hating it, not hating being known. But then he hadn’t seen Dimitri in the last three days. Between falling in and out of sleep, he couldn’t bring himself to burden his worried friends about it, or admit his issue even as Byleth seemed to know it was troubling him with knowing stares. It was hard not to think about. It was only one part of the endless loop of stress his mind was stuck in- but his thoughts somehow always came back to Dimitri. 

That frustrated him, too, because there were objectively far more important things to worry about. Like how the monastery was on high alert, or how the Alliance was suspecting of conspiring against the Archbishop, accusations being thrown around that he knew to be untrue but couldn’t correct because it would give away his identity as an Almyran- and not just any Almyran, an Almyran _Prince_. The Alliance was constantly in danger of cannibalizing itself and this wasn’t helping. Worst of all, Claude was in the center of it because he almost died and nobody would let him forget about it! No one let him forget he wasn’t strong enough to defeat the assassin on his own, that he almost died a martyr for a religion and authority he didn’t believe in, and it was a story he had to subscribe to because there was no way he could ever reveal the truth. His Grandpa's old heart was strained dealing with the Alliance and thinking about Claude’s narrowly avoided death where he almost lost an heir, again. His near death sat on Claude himself, too. Because somehow, despite all the times he was nearly killed, despite all the other times he was grievously wounded, this one felt worse. It was worse and he couldn’t understand why. Claude was used to dealing with this turmoil alone, was fully capable of dealing with this all on his own, but now his heart longed to lean on someone. Someone with strong hands and a strong conviction who didn’t leave Claude alone with only secrets for company. Someone broad shouldered and kind with pretty eyes that looked at him the way people looked at the sunrise, who would melt every time Claude held his face in his hands and leaned in like it was the salvation of a hearth and twice as warm. He didn’t know if he should appreciate the space Dimitri was giving him or resent it.

Claude’s head throbbed with the beginnings of a migraine. His heart ached more than he would ever admit.

And now here Felix was, digging into that sore spot. He didn’t know what kind of history he had with Dimitri but honestly? He wasn’t interested.

“There’s a lot to unpack with what you just said, but I don't have time for that.” Claude said. “So I’m going to go with telling you that’s none of your business.” He tried to focus back to the target, hoping Felix would take the hint and leave him alone. He didn’t.

“You’re right. It isn’t any of my business. I want nothing more than to walk away and not risk hearing any details of your bedding the boar Prince. I would do that if it wasn’t _just_ as irritating to watch you go along with its farce as it is watching you miss every shot. You haven’t seen what it’s capable of, not to the extent I have. You haven’t seen its true nature and got fooled into involvement with a monster wearing the face of a man. Unless the attack struck you deaf you’ve heard how it killed that assassin. Take that as your proof. You should’ve been able to see past the niceties if you’re as smart as everyone says you are. In the case your cunning has been greatly exaggerated, I’ll keep it simple. Your head’s still attached to your body, start thinking with _that_ and stop involving yourself with a _thing_ so violent.” Felix said, firm as if he were scolding. Claude had mentally prepared himself beforehand to let whatever Felix would say roll off his back, he _wanted_ to let it roll off his back, to not let it get to him; but the inhumane way Felix talked about Dimitri felt like claws in his skin, the cruelty being thrown in his face like cinders. Claude couldn’t manage to smile through his ridicule. He couldn’t walk away, not after that. 

“Violent, huh? _You're_ going to preach to me about violence.” He lowered his bow, facing Felix straight on. He could tell there would be no competitive merriment at the end of this. “What makes you different? The fact that you’ve got a metal stick in your hands while killing? Is it not violent because you’re _really_ good at swinging it around? We’ve all killed people, Felix, and you’re infamous for how good you are at doing it. If you’re going to take up an issue with someone I care about, don’t be such a hypocrite about it. Yeah, _obviously_ I heard about what he did to the assassin but killing is killing no matter how nice you are about it. I’m not going to hate someone for saving my life.” Claude wasn’t going to let this go lightly. He could tell Felix wouldn’t listen to any insistence regarding basic human decency toward Dimitri, so he staked his words on calling out his hypocrisy. Felix went from the annoyance of inconvenience and second hand vendettas to aggravation. 

“You fool, I didn’t gain that reputation until after I started at this Academy. The same can’t be said for that beast you have warming your bed.” Felix shot back. That caught Claude’s interest. The past between Felix and Dimitri.

“...What are you talking about?” Claude asked, mentally stepping out of himself. If Dimitri had been living some sort of double life the way Claude had, one filled with rampage and bloodshed, then he needed to know.

“Oh, so the chew toy doesn’t know everything. What a surprise.” Felix just had to insult him, he _had_ to get a jab in after catching Claude off guard.

“Insult me or answer my question, but don’t waste my time trying to do both. If you’re as right as you think you are then you’ll get to gloat faster.” Claude demanded, not going to dignify being called a chew toy with a response. 

“There was a rebellion in the Kingdom three years ago, the anniversary of the slaughter just passed. Dimitri was sent to fight in it, but he didn’t fight, he _massacred_. Half the people who died there were by his hand, _at least,_ and you didn’t see how much he reveled in it. Even those who sought surrender were slain. He had a demon's wrath in his eyes, where there was no greater joy than to butcher anybody who stood before him, and that's the _boar_ you’re defending now. Whatever you’re calling Dimitri is just a sick imitation of a boy who died long ago, a corpse puppeted around by a beast. How the assassin was maimed, that’s who he truly is, and you should count yourself lucky you weren’t conscious to see it.” Felix finally laid it all out. Claude was the one to look away this time.

He put it into place with all he already knew of Dimitri. The parts he saw and the parts Dimitri didn’t want him to see but were found out anyway. This fit somewhere between what the Tragedy of Duscur did to haunt him and the endless remorse he wrote out after the slaying of Lord Lonato. The things he muttered in his sleep that Claude couldn’t tie to either- it made sense. There was a small stack letters Claude had gone through in his not so proud moments of morbid curiosity, seeking understanding on one of Dimitri’s bad days. They spoke of reparations Dimitri tried to send to those affected by the Western Church’s strife, the way Dimitri mentioned Lonato’s adopted children by name, how he couldn’t look Ashe in the eye. Then the questions to Duke Fraldarius of some village in Faerghus that Claude knew nothing about, only knowing it had been under slow reconstruction for years. So caught up in grief, he would lament in his letter how there should’ve been another way. The returned letter scolded Dimitri for hesitation, saying the Prince would begin seeing things differently once he was crowned King, and overall incredibly dismissive of the diplomacy Dimitri had wished the Regent reached for before a lance.

There were moments outside of the letters, too. Once, he had accompanied Dimitri to one of his visits to the orphanage. Dimitri would spend time with the young orphans taken care of at the monastery and part of that time was allocated to teaching them how to sword fight with sticks. Claude asked why Dimitri was giving sword stick lessons to 8 year olds, asked if kids so young should really start thinking about armed combat. Dimitri pointed out how many of those serving the Church’s forces _now_ were orphaned young. Claude wondered why he said something so obvious when taken in hindsight, but then realized Dimitri had not said it as some kind of unknown fact, but of unacknowledged horror. These orphans were likely to grow and serve the church, at least half of them as soldiers, and many of them would die that way. A cold, sobering moment amongst the joys of play time. Those kids would never know when learning how to thwap at a nice Prince with sticks would save their lives, but Dimitri knew those kinds of early lessons were the only reason he survived Duscur. Claude knew Dimitri had been carrying a weapon since he learned how to walk, and would run with boulders strapped to his back before he knew how many ‘d’s to put in his last name, deprived of rest or water until he reached a certain goal on a mountain top. Dimitri saw himself in children who were destined to die fighting. And the scariest part was all of it made a lot of sense. It was the culture he was born into, the dread Dimitri was set to inherit. The Kingdom was the most militarized nation in this continent and the next, and the tragedy of it sunk deeper into Claude’s understanding.

Standing there before Felix, the reality of Fodlan being a broken place with broken traditions that broke the people in turn was not only known, but felt. Three years ago, Dimitri was a boy with less agency than a weapon, and he spent every day since then trying to reconcile for those mistakes. 

“Three years ago…” Claude started slowly, feeling Felix staring at him and waiting for an answer, waiting to be told he was right or to crush any half hearted rebuke, but Claude raised his head and spoke with a certainty that would heed to none of his preplanned dismissals. “Three years ago he was a child. And you were a child, but the people who put you there- _they_ weren’t children. They should’ve never put a weapon in his hand, or made you watch those people die.”

You’d sooner blame a _child soldier_ than the people who ordered him to do it?” He looked at Felix with renewed fire. “Do you care at all about the kind of person he is today?”

Felix’s expression cleared of everything at once, eyes wide as he took the impact of Claude’s words, of his questions. For a small moment, he wasn’t spiteful, just… mortified. It happened so fast that Claude would’ve missed it if he blinked too much. He wondered if he’d managed to change Felix’s mind. But that was wishful thinking. It all flooded back tenfold as outrage, Felix’s narrow jaw clenching as tight as his fists. Claude thought he was going to get decked for sure, so it was actually a pleasant surprise when Felix pushed past Claude to storm out the door.

“Why do I bother trying to talk to you people- go find some beast to bend over for, chew toy. You’d be better for that then common fucking sense.” Felix spat. 

“Fuck you, too! Throw a tantrum out of my sight next time!” Claude shouted back. A dumb idea because he knew Felix could lay him out in a brawl with the weakened state he was in, but Claude just got flipped off in response. Felix was more focused on not having to hear Claude talk than making him shut up.

Felix shoved past one more person on his way out. Sylvain. He had been lingering at the door watching them quarrel. He raised his hands defensively as Felix passed, as if he were an innocent bystander oblivious to what happened and not actively observing. Claude could tell from here Felix was glaring at him the entire time for how defensive Sylvain got. 

Sylvain circled around and walked backwards into the training area to avoid Felix as he left, letting out a long, low whistle once Sylvain’s antagonistic friend was out of earshot. 

“Wow, I thought for sure that was going to turn into a cat fight. Never seen Felix stick around for so long in one of his moods.” Sylvain’s comment so candid that Claude was taken aback at how nonchalant he was. Claude took a deep, deep breath. Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth, he needed every drop of pacificity he could get to deal with this guy right now.

“Sylvain?”

“That’s me.”

“Why in your deeply misogynistic mind would you compare what you just eavesdropped on to a cat fight. You noticed neither of us are women, right?”

“Oh, ‘cause Felix and Dimitri used to be in some kinda romance. Yeah, I have exes getting into spats over me _allll_ the time, I can spot that kind of thing a mile away.” He jabbed his thumb to the door Felix had stormed out of.

“...They were _what_?” Claude blurted.

“Did you not know?? Right, you’re not in the Blue Lions so this isn’t common knowledge. They were betrothed since Felix was born, spent so much time as kids talking about their wedding since the late King made a pretty big deal out of it. Of course it was all set up by their parents and the whole arrangement was called off long ago, but there was _something_ going on between them right when the Academy started. One of those ‘totally not a couple’ couples, you know the type.” Sylvain explained like it was old news. And to him it was. But not to Claude! “Our whole class caught them in the classroom on the _first week,_ can you believe it? And _I’m_ the scandalous one.” Sylvain joked, then immediately tried to backtrack when he saw Claude looking completely flabbergasted. “They’re not together anymore, though! I don’t think His Highness is the kinda guy to sneak around on people like that, let alone pull it off with the likes of you and Felix.” He kept going _as if that was the important part._

Claude dropped his bow to face palm, both hands slapping over his face and dragged down as it all sunk in. 

“Of course! Of course they’re exes. _How_ did I not put that together.” He massaged his throbbing temples, his brain felt like it was going to start writhing soon. He squatted down, covering his face once again. Everything he learned about Felix was without his consent. Sylvain made his way over to Claude with half hearted attempts at comfort, leaning down to pat Claude on the shoulder. He plopped down, officially to the point of sitting on the floor.

“You okay there, man?” Sylvain asked, already knowing the answer.

“No! I’m not okay. I’m sitting on this dusty floor like an idiot.”

“Mm. I’d join you but I don’t want a dirt outline on my ass. It’s nice but so are clean pants.” Sylvain patted Claude’s head, carelessly messing up his hair.

“Alright, paws off.” He swatted at Sylvain’s hand, taking it when offered up to help Claude to his feet. He picked his bow back up and then tried to pat himself off with one hand.

"Want me to hold that for you?" Sylvain asked. Claude pushed his bow and quiver into Sylvain's hands, using his now free hands to dust off the long back of his tunic. 

He was too frustrated to play it off, a little more forceful in smacking the dust off his clothes than he needed. Claude noticed people coming into the training area, and in an effort to not become more of a spectacle, b-lined to a back exit, one he hoped had less foot traffic with it being the long way around. Sylvain followed him out- and yeah it was a little rude to have Sylvain carry his stuff, but Claude was feeling rude, and Sylvain had enough tact to notice Claude’s worried glance at the door. 

"What's his problem?" Claude asked, speaking rhetorically more or less, but if Sylvain could offer him any insight he wouldn’t turn his nose up to it.

"It’s kinda just how he is. Did you not figure that out yet?” Sylvain asked as he followed him out, casually holding the bow and quiver in one hand so he could pat Claude on the back, comforting him like he was some guy at a tavern who just struck out for the third time. “Try not to take it too personally."

“Not take it personally? You heard the part where he called me a chew toy, right?” Claude retorted. Sylvain cringed, but didn’t try to get Claude to shrug it off again.

They settled in a spot off to the side, finding a place wedged between the bath house and the training grounds. It was open enough to not add ‘sneaking off with Sylvain’ to the rumor mill, but out of the way so if they were spotted, it would be by people going from the training grounds to the baths on their free day, and most people who did such were typically too preoccupied with getting cleaned up to care. He could talk without the glancing eyes and curious ears found at the training grounds. Claude closed his eyes and took another deep breath, trying to re-center himself.

He was upset and that was a dangerous mood to be in, the type that could make him speak before he realized what was coming out of his mouth. Claude thought he grew out of letting it show, going so far as to pride himself in his control over his temper, a level of temperance so few other noblemen had outside of the company they were forced to be polite to. Emotions were like any other part of his health, they had to be treated and maintained like the rest of the body, and if not? Well Claude knew what happened to limping deer. When he was this worked up, he knew to confide himself in his room until the moment passed, alone to pick through and manage it, never risking getting caught by another during his bad mood. He could do that now, he could go to his dorm and deal with it there. Being confined to a bed had made him insatiably restless, but it was better than gaining a reputation like Felix’s. He could grab his stuff and free the both of them from this fitful silence.

But he wasn't satisfied with the answer Sylvain gave him. Letting this moment pass meant he would likely never get a chance to ask again. It wouldn’t be worth chasing Sylvain down and acquiring the risk of Felix’s noticing Claude had been talking about him. Although… he didn't need to be as cautious if he framed it as something trivial- if he vented it out as menial romantic troubles. As far as Claude understood who he was dealing with, Sylvain knew Felix better and was shallow enough to not think too hard on it.

“He told me to stop… being around Dimitri. Came right out and said it, even acted like I was planning on going into hiding from him.” Claude said, leaning his back against the wall, crossing his arms.

“Are you going to? I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how everyone’s in the know about your ‘being around’ His Highness. Felix isn’t a gossip but he’s also not deaf.” Sylvain asked. Sylvain joined Claude on the wall, looking at him even if Claude was too mad to look at Sylvain right now. He was too under-armed to prepare a suitable expression, but Sylvain was casual enough not to mind.

“Whatever rumors are going around aren’t his business. So what gives him the right to do something like that?” Claude deflected, not wanting to confirm any rumors. Rumors were a whole different issue he had to deal with now, and not a subject he wanted to get into, especially not with Sylvain. He felt a little bad leaving it up in the air, but Claude himself was unsure of the state of his relationship with Dimitri.

“I’m no expert on Felix-ology, but I think he still thinks he knows Dimitri better than anybody. Don’t get me wrong, time does a lot to change people, but you spend the first 14 years of your life being around someone all the time, it’s hard not to see them that way. Even if you cut out the whole betrothal, they were still best friends.” Sylvain explained.

“Best friends, huh?” Claude wondered what it would’ve felt like to be Felix in that moment, watching Dimitri, his best friend, cut through so many people in the frenzied state he was in when killing the assassin. He would be horrified, Claude quickly decided. He would be horrified and never look at Dimitri the same way again. In the long term? Claude couldn’t say. But he knew battles were rarely the choices of those fighting in them. He wondered if Felix fought in the same battle, as much as a child could fight and not simply obey and try to survive. Whatever scars Dimitri carried from it, Felix’s were in the same spot, and it was easier to account for the horrors by placing one person at the center of it all.

If they were romantically involved in the Academy’s early days, it really made Claude wonder if Felix himself believed all of what he said about Dimitri.

“But why get involved with him at the Academy? If he can’t stand Dimitri, why get into a romance with him.” Claude asked. 

“I don't know much about it, nobody does, it didn’t last more than a few weeks, either. He’d kill me for telling you this so keep it between you and me, but _Felix_ was actually the one to start things. Crazy, I know. Other than that? No clue. You’d have to ask Felix.” Sylvain said with a wince. “I personally wouldn’t since I assume you want to keep your limbs at an even number. So as usual the only real answer is the least satisfying one. It’s complicated.

“Best definitive answer _I_ can give you is that they used to be really close and well, there _is_ that whole betrothal thing. Everything he did was with the pretense that it was all leading up to marriage, even picking up a sword held the expectation of using it to defend his King-husband one day, not himself. There was no Felix before Dimitri. He grew up getting told by everyone around him that his biggest responsibility in life was to marry the Prince; I’d be resentful, too.” Sylvain explained. Claude finally looked up at him, finding a piece of the clarity he was seeking. What Sylvain told Claude was both coherent and insightful, traits which never made its way into what people usually said about him, but Claude stopped short before he could share his gratitude. Sylvain was looking past Claude and off into nothing, dropping his airs since Claude’s were already down. There was more to the distance in his gaze than speaking on another's behalf would’ve left, and that’s when it clicked. Most nobility Claude knew had the pressure of marriage breathing down their neck. The process of nobles getting married could go from a casual dismissal of agency to full on lifelong trauma, and all of them had to go through it with few exceptions. He could guess Sylvain wasn’t one of those exceptions. Sylvain and Felix, despite whatever they put out into the world, knew that hurt.

But the way he spoke had more to it still. The way his eyes had a distant want, a yearning that went beyond friendship and solidarity... Were Sylvain’s feelings for Felix deeper?

When Sylvain came back, the sympathy in Claude’s eyes was too much. It had to be. Claude was discerning enough not to point out the conclusion he drew- but his expression was too unfiltered. There wasn’t any excessive pity or weeping or anything so stupidly dramatic- Sylvain wasn’t a wounded bird and he was inexcusably pretty shitty to all the women whose hearts he broke. No, Claude wasn’t going to get bent out of shape, but he wasn’t made of stone, either. There was a stitch of Claude’s eyebrows and the drag on the corner of his lips. Concern, maybe even less than that, like understanding, or plain, simple acknowledgement. Not only for Sylvain, but Felix, too, who undeniably meant a lot to Sylvain for him to be standing around and defending. But he still spotted Sylvain with his defenses down, and even a glimpse was too much. 

“Aw, come on now, don’t look at me like that!” Sylvain said, laughing it off with a playful smile and toss of red hair as his fingers carded through it. “I’m trying to make you feel better and now you’re giving me sad eyes.” His bow and quiver were abandoned at Claude’s feet, freeing Sylvain to dismissively wave his hands as if he could dispel the air around them from what Claude figured out. If it was anybody but Sylvain, it would’ve ended there, a weird break in conversation and carrying on before things got overly familiar. But no. He was dealing with another Kingdom noble.

“I’m not giving you any look- whaaaaat are you doing?” Claude pressed his back firmly into the wall when Sylvain leaned in, a hand flat to the wall over his head, a move easy for Sylvain to do with the half foot of height he had on Claude. The smile Sylvain dressed up in was a flirty, disingenuous thing. 

“You know, I meant to say this earlier but you’re really cute when you’re angry. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t usually think of guys like this, but there’s a couple of exceptions to be made.” Sylvain said, coming completely out of left field with this flirting. Claude had to crane his head to look up with Sylvain standing so close, pressing his hands into the wall as if he would find more room to back up that way. Sylvain looked down at him with a smirk, pleased with himself for reasons Claude couldn’t fathom.

“Are you hitting on me???” Claude blurted, dumbstruck at how Sylvain thought this was anywhere near appropriate. Too stunned to be (rightfully) offended, he gaped up at a foxy smile. Sylvain nodded and shrugged as if this was an obvious, well balanced choice he was making.

“If the Prince hasn’t gotten you all to himself? Yeah, yeah I am. I’ve been wanting to make a move on you for a while now. Maybe it’s because you’re on the short side. Or whatever it is you do with your hair.” Sylvain winked, twirled Claude’s braid between his fingers. Claude flushed. This was too much.

“Are you insane!?” Claude shoved Sylvain away with both hands on his chest, pushing off the wall so he wouldn’t be so easily cornered. “Is there something in the Faerghus water that gives men this _audacity??_ "

“No, but if there is then it just made me clever.” His smile never dropped, not even in the face of Claude’s anger. He nodded over to the corner, “Take a look.” Claude’s stomach dropped, praying it wouldn’t be Dimitri standing there but knowing that’s exactly what he’d see, never seeing his face but getting sight of his back, catching a blue cape’s flair as Dimitri turned and walked away. Sylvain had set him up. “Genius, I know.” Sylvain said, arms behind his head like he did something worth being self congratulatory over. “Now he’s gonna be all over you and you can stop with the whole ‘will they won’t they.’ And hey, if you need a rebound I’m only one more door down.”

Claude pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling like he had a dozen years cut off his life by Felix and Sylvain alone. He wasn’t going to chase after Dimitri and start a scene, it was the last thing they needed with all the rumors going around, but part of him thought about taking off after Dimitri, and the temptation stayed with him longer than it should’ve.

“You’re… I. I can’t even put into words how purposefully obtuse that was.” Claude grabbed his bow and his quiver. He was officially overwhelmed. Had they always been this obnoxious? Or had half a week in the infirmary with nothing but unending stress resensitize him. Sylvain was going to say something but Claude cut him off with a curt wave. “Nope. No way. Don’t want to hear it. Do me a favor and never try helping me again.” There was no talk after that. Claude left in gracious silence, trying not to look as upset as he felt on the walk back to his dorm. He would have to find Dimitri later to clear the air, there was no way he could do it like this.

He kept an eye out but didn’t see Dimitri on his way; for the Prince had stayed back, waiting until Claude’s absence to follow the path back to Sylvain. Dimitri was going to have a word with Sylvain, and it was not going to be pleasant.

**Author's Note:**

> Check chapter 1 top notes for more information/important notes regarding this fanfiction.
> 
> My twitter is @grayvamp if you're interested.


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